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NATURE 
SONGS 




By David Cl Nimmo 






Copyrighted 1915 
By David C Nimmo 



CI.A410013 



Times Printing Co., Detroit, Mien, 



JUL 22 1915 



T^vrftxtt 




N PUTTING forth a fifth book of verse that 
cannot find a publisher, reader or a 
friend, perhaps the plain, blunt truth 
again is best. All the votes that really 
count are adverse. It can't get across. 
Perhaps it is not worth it. Perhaps it has performed 
its highest service in giving the author mental occu- 
pation at a time when most needed, but in a country 
and nation that has none of the first class and very 
little of second class poetry, it ought not to be so hard 
to find a publisher and more important, a person 
capable of judging who will even read. 

This is the first classified collection of my songs. 
They are a lyrical contribution to a subject that ought 
to have a large and inspiring volume. It is surprising 
that we have no great book of such a character. Why 
has no genius been born and consecrated to this sub- 
ject! The scattered fragments in the singers are mere- 
ly incidents and illustrations. Byron, Wordsworth and 
Shelley may give us an utterance here and there, but 
we have no great songs on the sea, the mountains, the 
plains, ithe forests, the sun, the moon and the midnight 
heavens. The vast panorama of the seasons goes on 
and yet we have no great lyrics on the passion of 
spring, the ripeness of summer, the magnificence of 
autumn and the polar virility of winter. In nature there 
is a fountain of infinite song that ought to be more 
and more delightful to men as they are being bound up 
in a social organism that is unkind to all the pure 
influences and inspirations of the first great mother. 
These songs are just a little contribution in that direc- 
tion and an invitation to the singer, the apostle and 
prophet of nature to appear. 

A great deal more in this book than the mere poetic 
forms will instantly compel comparisons with the poet 
Shelley It is the right place to acknowledge the re- 
lationship which is none other than that of poetic 
fatherhood. When attending McMaster University m 



Toronto my first real interest was aroused in lyrical 
verse by our studies in Palgrave's "Golden Treasury of 
Songs and Lyrics." In this book I was especially at- 
tracted to Shelley and read, out of class, all the shorter 
and most of his longer productions. My delight was so 
great that on one occasion I skipped the mathematical 
lectures and memorized the "Adonais." This was no 
doubt a grave university sin but I have ever considered 
it, apart from nature's endowment, as one of the best 
inspirations of the spirit of poetry in me. With the 
poems continually singing themselves in my ears and 
the visions flashing across my eyes it is but natural 
that both the inner spirit and the outer form should 
take something from the soul that nursed them into 
being and in some measure gave them their ideal. In 
view of this I have sometimes thought to write a song 
of appreciation as I have done for other persons in 
"Civic Songs," but there are so many conscious and 
unconscious evidences of my obligation that it seems 
hardly necessary. 

Some of these songs might be placed under another 
head, but the imagery, viewpoint or book interest 
justifies their appearance here. There is already 
enough matter in print and some yet to come for a good 
sized book of "Civic Songs." I trust I shall be permitted 
to gather and correct the old and produce some better 
new material in the near future for a book of "Soul 
Songs." A later and smaller book, but perhaps more 
appealing, would be "Home Songs." 

It is not quite an inspiration to earn money with 
the hands and then throw it away in producing books 
that no one will read, but if the verse has any real 
merit, and I still think it has, it ought to be done. 
"They've all got through" and so shall I. 

In sending forth these songs there is nothing asked 
or expected but just a reading. Give them the reality 
and brutality of nature. All must have their judgment 
day and the sooner the better, but it is well to re- 
member that in judging others we are writing the last 
and final sentence on ourselves. D. C. N. 

March 1st, 1915. 



CONTENTS 



Page 

Nature's First Song 7 

The Azure Dome • • 14 

The Northern Lights 21 

Passed But Never Passed 25 

Sunrise • • 2G 

A Dot ■■ 28 

Night 28 

Consider the Lilies 33 

Song of the Green Tree 34 

The Pansy • • • • 38 

A Flower • • 42 

The Sense of Morn 43 

Sweet Peas 45 

The Boy's World 46 

The Constellations 47 

The Echo • • 50 

Down and Out 54 

Spring 57 

The Rose • • -61 

The Dandelion • • 64 

Among the Stars 68 

Nature's Songs 74 

Meteors and Stars 77 

A Morning Song for Sense 79 



The Mocking Bird • • 80 

When Shall My Soul-Summer Come? 85 

To Astronomy 86 

Detroit River • • 88 

The Sphere Supreme 91 

Nature's Peace 97 

The Robin 98 

A Saucer of Pansies • • 100 

The Pioneer's Song 102 

The Sky and Sea Line 103 

Nature's Bouquet 104 

The Autumn Wind 105 

Summer • • 108 

Spring Hymn • • 112 

The Stream • • 113 

The Bride of the Sun 115 

Fire 119 

Morning Song for Mind 122 

Winter • -123 

A Boy's Ride 127 

Oh Golden Sun 129 

To My Nature's Songs 137 






NATURE'S FIRST SONGS. 

Upon a golden morn I wandered forth 
With vital hope uplifting heart and brain. 
Cold death had passed and springtime's glorious reign 
Was come, with just a breath out of the north 
To fan the earth from every influence swart h. 

Great nature's heart did overflow 

And with its white, contagious glow 
Fed life's delight. A visionary train 

Seemed ever breaking on my sight, 

Just curtained by the splendors bright. 
From all around, earth, wind and cloud and skies 
With latest life of life my powers did energize. 

Hark! Hark! The sound of music struck my ears, 
And music great at such an hour is fire 
That feeds the soul and doth divine inspire 
As mortals make victorious o'er the years. 
I turned and listened. They were my kindred peers, 

Twin hierarchic souls, a band 

Of sound creating sprites, as grand 
A concourse as musician could desire 

Advanced and pouring into time 

Some echoes from the world of chime. 
They were marching and playing down the street 
And the city's mighty heart in union with them beat. 

And then, a vision swept across my brain; 
A sudden flood burst up within my heart 
As fountains from the ocean deep will start. 
The whole world disappeared as a vain 
And phantom presence. Instead another strain 

Of music with its vital spell 

Upon my heart with magic fell; 
Another band and instruments and art 

Began a new, unusual sound 

Whose nature instant spirit found 
And took me in captivity. My eyes and ears 
Went traveling with that train that traveled down the years 

The musicians were enfolded in a cloud 
Of darkness with something like a formless form, 
Like something at a distance through a storm 
That beats a blindness. Wrapped in a windy shroud 



Each individuality did crowd 

Into another's on the visions. 

Titanic shadows, dark derisions 
And columned fragments of the glorious norm 

Of man were they; forces new bound 

By flesh and blood, intense, profound 
And massive spirits, travailing in distress, 
Beating their battling way through storms that round them press. 

Hugest incarnations of nature's force, 
Distortions and vast monstrosities of men 
Those first musicians were that did unpen 
The world's first songs from their chaotic source. 
Their only instruments were trumpets hoarse — 
Huge, massive drums and hammers great 
That could the deep reverberate- 
Deep battered cymbals — voices and lungs of ten- 
Fold strength, and the great basal tones 
That nature to the giant loans; 
The first band organized to march and sing 
In that first chaos world, themselves a chaos thing. 

They played. I heard the sound, the vast, voluminous sound 
Of the original, disorganized 
And heterogeneous elements that comprised 
The yet unfashioned worlds. Above, around, 
And far beyond unto the boundless bound 

Of chaos was the mighty discord 

Of those titanic forces poured 
In space and time and infinite energized; 

Solar attractions and repulsions, 

System-making mad convulsions; 
Explosions great that tore with rending sound 
As earthquakes sudden tear the kingdoms underground. 

Then was the fierce and blind and stark contensions 
Of nature and her powers all inorganic. 
Her lightning and omnipotent dynamic 
Tore swift the forms an unseen hid invention 
Forever made to bind the mad dissension. 

The strife of those resistless powers 

In ante-geologic hours 
Seemed centered at all base and forms mechanic. 

Earth's cosmic passion, solar white 

Rebelled in sheer resistless might 
Till oft it seemed a million asteroid 
Would chart the planets' paths around the darkened void. 



That mighty strife was by itself abhorred 
And fled through dark, illimitable night 



Like some most monstrous dragon. Driven by fright- 
Ful terror or unpastured for some stored 
Supply it went blindly bellowing forward. 

Like young volcanoes' roars of thunder 

Itself and all it tore asunder. 
Reverberating with expansive might 

It echoed on from cloud to cloud, 

Till the world-soul within her shroud 
So dead from long eternal slumbers rose, 
Was tortured, twisted, torn and fled with groans and woes. 

That cataclysmic and anarchic noise 
Of the travailing soul of chaos appalled 
Creation's hope. The very chaos it enthralled 
To worse of its own measure and destroys 
The germs of life that might rise out of poise. 
The chaos of the universe 
Did ever new destruction nurse 
And forming worlds against each other called. 
The vast explosions of that force 
The planets tore. In another course 
The worlds did round their lawless orbits dash 
Or later did unite with another thundering crash. 

r 

Music discordant, yet massive and sublime 
From nature's mighty and colossal powers 
Burst from the fierce antagonism that devours 
All others. The four elements that rhyme 
The system's first creations many a time 

Rent from the earth gigantic groans 

When fiery seas dug out the bones 
Of solid forming earth. The arching bowers 

Around the globe were sounding boards 

For the all dismembering discords 
And they threw back the elemental sound, 
Prolonging the great rhymes with which young worlds abound. 

Continued storms and tropic earthquake thunder 
Shook the slow foundation. The first high height 
Of ranges fell. Continents were torn right 
From continents. The poles were rent asunder, 
And first formations plowed in anger under. 

From ocean beds to mountain peaks 

The lightnings flash and thunder speaks 
Till pillared heaven seems trembling with affright. 

The earth like a great drunken thing 

No builder to his dream could bring. 
Staggers on through the dark chaotic storm 
That slowly moulds the ma,ss to some far undreamed form. 

9 



From those long, long contentions sprang the laws 
Of mighty nature, the first low forms of life, 
Later ponderous monstrosities of strife 
And all the breeds whose lack of solemn awes 
The hungry deep into her bosom draws. 

Through all the changes of the fJood 

The lower dynasties of blood 
Reigned o'er the scene as astronomic ages rite 

Passed slowly by. Cosmology, 

World creations, biology, 
World populations, through long eonic times 
With mighty storms and change rang out the ancient rhymes. 

So reigned for long the dark, primeval strife; 
So groaned and groaned the fundamental base 
Ere the giant elements could find their place 
And support the everlasting song of life. 
Rich potentialities most rife 

Were in the biologic forms 

And slowly rose above the storms, 
Hinting the dreams that might creation grace. 

Whenever time struck off an eon 

There sounded forth a strain of paeon, 
A note of prophecy, a promise high, 
Of heaven climbing song that dawn was drawing nigh. 

Sudden another sight and sound appears; 
The musicians marched into the golden light 
Like visitors descending from the height 
And clothed with hope instead of stormy fears. 
They were immortals, princes from the highest spheres 

Of vision, young, fresh and strong 

As morning undefiled w r ith wrong. 
They came upon my long oppressive sight 

As virtues, hopes and joys and dreams 

On whom the morning splendor beams; 
They came as from high heaven's lofty station 
To hail the glorious dawn of rational creation. 

Their instruments were like themselves divine; 
There were basses, cornets, trumpets and trombones, 
Cymbals and. drums, clear clarion megaphones 
And stranger forms which their invention fine 
Formed to express the passions' lyric wine. 

Some were encased in cumbrous coils 

Of strange contortions, others were foils 
For straighter tubes, but all of magic tones. 

These were long, single, tapering horns; 

Those a branching octave form adorns; 

10 



The musicians and their instruments were bright, 
In snowy whiteness robed or splendor dazzling light. 

Nor was the hope and promise disappointed; 
The band had scarcely marched into my eyes 
Before I heard a cosmic theme arise 
And such a sound the instruments anointed 
The present from the past was clean disjointed. 

The song of chaos passed away 

And notes of high prophetic lay 
Upon me burst and did re-energize, 

Forgot the players as the play 

Came on my soul with mighty sway, 
Scenes and songs of the cosmic evolutions, 
Order, brightness and strength of nature's institutions. 

It was the dawn, the promised, golden dawn; 
The promise bound in that chaotic night 
Burst on the hour and from the cloudy height 
The night and strife were suddenly withdrawn 
And all the hosts of their reptilian spawn. 

Morning dawned and a fresh, green earth 

Slept underneath her smile of mirth 
And dreamed of life and progress and delight. 

The ocean deep around her feet 

Did glisten and its rythmic beat 
Was to her frame a soft and summer bath 
And life unto her heart after the tempest's wrath. 

What majesty and splendor did bedight 
Those morning skies when golden radiations 
Leaped from the sun and lightning emanations 
Passed to and fro with infinite delight 
And life to all creation. Oh what a sight! 

Oh what a most majestic march 

The morn makes through the azure arch 
And publishes these glorious new creations! 

Day and night made processional pomp 

And the inexperienced seasons romp 
And wanton in youth's luxurious dream, 
Glowing with boundless life that in their fountains teem. 

A polyphonic and most triumphant measure 
Upon that morn burst from the wide creation 
When harmony and shining transformation 
From chaos rose. World-spirits filled with pleasure 
Did contemplate and listened at their leisure. 

The morning sun in splendor bright, 

The constellations of the night, 
The fields and floods and mounts in jubilation 

11 



Shouted their inconceivable joy 
And in the service of employ- 
Filled out a bar of the vast eonic sound 
That from the climbing universe upon that morn did bound. 

It planted soul beneath the dome of night 
To watch the splendors that forever shine, 
And harken to the mighty song divine 
That rolls sublime on the established height 
Of wisdom, glory, solemnity and might. 

Oh what an inconceivable song 

Preserveth all those worlds from wrong 
And marches on to match some vast design! 

Oh hark! Oh hark! Upon the ears 

Some echo from those sceptered spheres 

With power and passion and delight now break 

And all the new-born earth with gratulations shake. 

It planted soul before the dawning morn 
To hear the song that ushers in the light, 
The song the sun lifts from the starry night, 
Exalting with his strength and bright adorn 
The great creation that new each day is born. 

Oh what a hymn strong and sublime 

Rolls down the corridors of time 
And climbs the steep as morn climbs up the height! 

It carries up the universe 

In mighty march and does unpurse 
The promises and prophet inspirations 
Of something more divine to crown these sense creations. 

Then came man, creation's final crown, 
An image of the Life and Light eternal, 
Eclipsing for a time day and night's supernal 
Splendors. Nobility was like a gown 
Of majesty upon him flowing down. 

Thought, virtue, strength and reverence 

Look up the lofty eminence 
And heaven looked down with passion most paternal. 

A transcendental, rich creation 

To crown the world's divinest station; 
The rational, the Infinite had nursed 
And bringing him to birth all riches in him pursed. 

His form was in creation's highest mould, 
Nature's design, her masterpiece and cast, 
And its full lines forever far surpassed 
The noblest dreams that poets ever told. 
But, Oh the soul, the soul that it did hold 
Was heaven's breath, her best desire, 

12 



God's own, immortal flames of fire 
Out of his breast which parenthood unclasped! 

Man's powers did dominate the earth; 

His strength was like her ribs of mirth; 
His spirit soared beyond the azure skies, 
To highest ends impelled for their immortal rise. 

When that imperial, heaven-erected form 
Came on the scene the splendors of his face 
That unseen worlds of virtue seemed to grace 
Aroused the world-soul, and nature felt a warm 
Delight that did communicate a storm 

Of universal gratulation. 

Her members with intoxication, 
With all their strength, each in his gift and place, 

With their unconscious, deep devotion, 

Air, beast and bird, forest and ocean, 
Beholding thus the world's prophetic sire 
Calm walking in the light burst out in sevenfold choir. 

How could the praise but take another flight 
When it beheld the crown upon the years! 
The world and what the evolution rears 
Is but the base for that immortal right 
Supreme in man and destined for the height; 

So nature's vast eonic sound 

Rose up as with an eagle's bound 
She never knew when moulding out the spheres. 

The past was but the opening prelude 

To usher in the more subdued, 
Intensified and complicated strain 
That echoes from the worlds where the ideals reign. 

The band was clothed in raiment spotless white 
And marched as with the marches of the sun. 
All earth-born souls unto their ranks were won 
And joined the bright procession on the height 
That skirted paradise. In sounding their delight 
It. seemed that Life and all her powers 
Were crowning man's prophetic hours 
With measures of victorious exultation. 
The strains of that prophetic band 
Were led by Hope in full command. 
The rational the future did invite, 
Nature divine did hear and with them did unite. 

The musicians rose with Hope to full command. 
The great eternal hopes at reason's birth 
Descended from their stations; with drunken mirth 
Drank in the strain and fell before the band 

13 



That heaven filled so bright and glorious spanned, 

Ideals, visions, joys and hopes 

On either side did crown the slopes 
And wept and laughed as this old mother earth 

With passion swept the wide extremes 

Of this the dream of all her dreams. 
They played the song of rational creation 
And Life and all her dreams did crown each golden station. 

Oh it was music, glorious, glorious music! 
Earth's bosom swelled with rapt, divinest passions 
Her frame was clothed in rainbow beauty fashions 
And every life unto the impulse quick 
Did march and sing, did make and drank prophetic 
Measures of most immortal strain 
That fell upon the heart and brain 
As if they were the spirit's highest rations. 

It spread and climbed, it soared and soared, 
Till Life was bent, admired, adored, 
And in the center of the glorious sound 
Was silence most divine, an awe the most profound. 

— From "The Band March." 



THE AZURE DOME. 

Oh the azure dome! Oh the azure dome! 

My first and my last and my noblest home! 
The home of my spirit's immortal birth 

Far above the strife and the stain of earth. 

Around me it lays like a world of dream 
And its vital powers ever on me stream 

To waken the thought and the sense divine 
That will beauty see and with it entwine. 

Through my meteor years it has stretched to view 
A vision as great as the soul when true. 

Its fulness and all on the eyes have grown 
As my nature has with the strife and moan. 

The blue of the birds, the flowers and the sea, 
The mountain jewels, or whatever may be 

By the art of man or his wisdom dyed 

Are buried in shame in their hour of pride. 

Unfocus the light! Could a rainbow tint 

Such a shade on the curtains of noonday print? 

14 



Or prism divide a serener blue 

From the hidden heart of the white so true? 

Oh summon the dreams, all the dreams of delight 
From the height of day and the depth of night! 

Could the mingled light of a magic dream 
Throw a rival hue from the weaver's beam? 

Could the poet soul with the eye divine 

That can brighter see than the lights that shine, 

From the worlds of his love and joy and hope 
Bring a beam like that on the morning slope? 

All of earth and art and dream were a patch, 
As a ragged cloud on that breast would match. 

And though blending near to the matchless blue 
Oh what is a scrap to the deeps we view! 

What a glorious deep of impassioned sky! 

Now the heart leaps up with a joyful cry; 
Should we pause and look on a May time morn 

What a life and love and a dream are born? 

What a life and love when the springtime breath 
Have the blossoms kissed from their graves of death! 

And the rain-washed sky doth embosom the earth 
As a mother does her beloved birth. 

Though the waves are bright and the grass is green, 
More vital than ever the eyes have seen, 

All the dreamlike earth though we feel it nigh 
Is lost to the heart when we look on high. 

What a rest and peace when the summer heat 

Has pulsed the air to a quivering beat! 
And motionless, silent, serene and deep 

Are the infinite calms that are there asleep. 

Not a fleecy cloud in the hemisphere; 

Not a phantom, shadow or nameless fear; 
Not a sign of storm or a sound profane 

On that windless, tideless and landless main. 

What a pride and power when the autumn's wealth 
Into all forms press with perfection's health! 

And around the ripened and rainbow globe 
Is the azure deep as a royal robe. 

15 



A majesty, splendor, pomp and repose 
On the atmosphere and horizon glows: 

As a dream they move all in stately march 

To the land of dreams through the purple arch. 

What a hope and joy on a winter day 

When a month of clouds has been blown away! 

And the sky though pale from the icy air 
We hail with delight as a vision rare. 

Though the dark storm clouds and the sworded ice 
Blast all our dreams of an earth paradise, 

Despite of the frost they float on our eyes 
Through the opening rifts of the azure skies. 

When the morning sun from the deep of night 
With his front and eyes of effulgent light, 

First rose to the earth for his daily race 
He smiled to behold such a matchless grace. 

When the noonday sun first became a king 
And created things did beneath him swing, 

He enrobed his breast with the morning blue 
Though he first baptized to a deeper hue. 

When the evening sun first descended deep 

That the day, the earth and her babes might sleep, 

'Twas the robe of noon but with stars divine 
He spread on the pain of their aching eyne. 

When the midnight sun doth his circles fill 
And leaves us to night and the nurse's skill, 

He inspires the dreams of the golden skies 
And with azure hope fills our wak'ing eyes. 

The sun-born daughters with their rainbow dress, 
Their splendor, their motions and joyousness, 

How they rise from earth and to heaven cling 
Or sail on the blue with an eagle wing! 

What a home so fit for their spirits free 
As the deepless deeps of the sky and sea? 

Is the blue more soft than the fleecy dress 
Which their golden sire does upon them bless? 

What a stainless course and how free from noise! 

What a changing form and a bird-like poise! 
Though they need it not they forever rest 

As they rise and fall on that passioned breast. 

16 



How they rise and fall, how they come and go 
In the azure fields like the isles of snow! 

All earth's flowing streams with delightful eyes 
Watch the sun and clouds in the azure skies. 

That divinest dome and her infinite deep, 

That heightless height and her boundless sweep, 
That nature of passion and purity 
Is a royal nurse of the best we be. 

The immortal soul with the sense divine 

That is drugged to sleep with this earthly wine 

Of the sorrow, sin and the selfish greed 

That each to himself and to others feed, 

Awakes with joy and supreme delight 
Prom the trances deep of this awful night 

And enraptured looks with a vast surprise 
At the beauty throned on the azure skies. 

Her hue and her height, and breadth and length, 
Her victory, splendor and royal strength, 

Feeds into the soul the immortal sense 

Till the heart and mind light tne countenance. 

With the glowing heats of a spirit's flame 
She aspires to rise with celestial aim 

So she soars on high with majestic sweep 
To the native spheres that her virtues keep. 

Those celestial spirits of purity 

Are the vital draughts of futurity; 
And when drinking there we forever soar 

With eternal life though we pant for more. 

When we live on high, when we drink that life, 
How our fountains flow; and our fancies rife 

Are full as the heart of poetic thought 

And leaps from the lips of the least untaught. 

There all that we see and can think or find 
Feed a raptured joy to the heart and mind 

As we sail and soar through the azure skies 
And forget the earth that beneath us lies. 

What eons as waves have beneath thee rolled 
The mountains, the seas or the stars ne'er told, 

For before their birth was spread thy adorn 
As a mother's love round the babe unborn. 

17 



What a fresh young life and a new born grace 
Is mirrored to earth in thy cloudless face! 

Old, old as thou art, thou art ever new 

When we lift our hearts for another view. 

What a granite strength like the strength of truth 
When young with the life and the hope of youth! 

Though the mountain range long the storms defy 
It is whirlwind dust to the girdled sky. 

What an unrobed nature of purity, 

Too pure for the eyes of the most to see, 

Doth circle us round and on conscience streams 
Both a silence deep and most solemn dreams! 

What a changeless love round a world of stain, 
Where the moral hopes in their birth are slain! 

Over human sin thus so crimson crowned 
It has never darkened or wrinkling frowned. 

What a nature pure and what matchless grace 
Is around his breast and upon his face 

And is opened here unto mortal eyes 

In the solemn deeps of the azure skies! 

Oh what and where is the mortal hour 

With its boast and pride and its works of power, 

When the solemn sight of the azure sky 
Doth attract the flesh and the spirit's eye! 

Oh what is the strife and the greed of gain 
With its Cain-like brow of a brother slain, 

When we look aloft at the solemn sight 
And silent stand in her floods of light! 

Oh what is time and her fevered dream 
Of the mighty hosts that forever stream 

When we pause and gaze wth prophetic look 
At the symbols spread on that opened book! 

Oh men of the city whose skiey strips 

The crowd and the noise and the smoke eclipse, 
With eclipse so dark that the heart and eye 

Is blind to the earth and the powers on high: 

In thy day of strength and the greed of gain, 
In the hour of grief and of loss and pain, 

Go up to the towers and just take a view 
Of the hemisphere and the boundless blue. 

18 



Does the breath of spring and the dew of youth, 
The rapture of hope and the strength of truth 

Seem forever fled? Oh the Spirit there 

But waits with his gifts for the look of prayer! 

Is day as the night and night as the,.; deep 
When chaotic storms en her bosom leap? 

The night shall be day and day be as bright 
As the heavens above and her seas of light. 

Has death in his arms bore thy love away 
And left thee alone to the beasts of prey? 

There is peace and calm and a higher love 
To fall in thy heart from the skies above. 

Does the mighty strife of eternal greed 

A revulsion vast to thy being feed? 
The sun and the skies will forever give 

And who takes their life will revive and live. 

Whatever the sorrows that make thee lean 
Go forth and stand where the skies are seen; 

Just stand and behold and the azure towers 
Shall lift thy heart with divinest powers. 

For the spirit's home is the azure dome 

Where e'er in the deserts of earth he roam, 

As the gardened bowers and their perfumed flowers 
Is the home of birds and the summer hours. 

As the bridal isles and their golden smiles 
Is the lovers' home and their heart beguiles, 

So the sky above and her purity 

Is the home of love and her spirits free. 

'Tis the home of all, but the poet heart 
There finds himself and the noblest art; 

For the art and the artist are undivine 

Till they lose themselves and in others shine. 

Oh poetic soul of celestial birth! 

There is naught for thee in the greed of earth, 
But the earth herself which her sons despise 

And the heavens above and her azure skies. 

There the atmosphere can so vitalize, 

That the heart and mind with a vast surprise 

Will behold with awe yet delirious mirth 
The natures divine of prophetic birth. 

19 



For the worlds that swim in that azure dome 
Mock Egypt, Assyria, Greece and Rome; 

This was only made for an infant's time, 
But those to the scale of a manhood's prime. 

The beauty there that we worship must 
Of the rainbow cloud and the starry dust, 

Of the golden suns and the moons of light 
Will enrobe thy song in their beauty bright. 

And the music there of the crystal spheres 
That is only heard by immortal peers 

Will around thee ring, and inspire thy verse 
With harmonies based on the awful curse. 

Those impassioned powers oft will palpitate 
Rich into thy heart the ecstatic state 

That forms the divine to forever stay 

When the phantom man and his works decay. 

Then Oh for- the plain and the hemisphere 
Where the earth is bare and the heavens clear, 

With naught on the heart to obscure the view 
Of pavilioning, deep and redeeming blue! 

And Oh for the summit of mountain height 
Where the soul is bathed in the liquid light, 

And the visions and pleasures and powers intense 
Are felt in the tissues of mortal sense! 

And Oh for the days of aerial skill 

When his cloud-like car he can mount at will, 
And at morning, noon and at twilight dim 

In that ocean deep will delight to swim! 

And Oh for the days when this mortal chain 
By a mighty hand will be rent in twain, 

And my spirit free as the eagles are 

Shall drink from the noon and the midnight star! 

And Oh for eternity's lightning wings 
When the spirit soars and forever sings! 

Oh forever soars with eternal rise 
In the life and the love of the azure skies! 



20 



THE NORTHERN LIGHTS. 

Dancing! Dancing! Dancing! 

Spirits pure and bright! 
Dancing! Dancing! Dancing! 
Round a court of light, 
A host of spirits blest and fairy-like to sight. 

Where are these dancers gay? 

Where is this court you spy? 
This spirit, elf and fay 

That on your vision fly, 
And raise out of your heart this glad ecstatic cry? 

Where? Yonder where from olden, 
Time built old winter's throne ; 

Where summer summer golden 
Is never never known, 
But Iceland's ancient king rules all the polar zone? 

Yonder where night's curtain 
The storms in anger blow; 
Where never is uncertain 
Vast field of ice and snow, 
And clear and frosty nights and furry Eskimo. 

Yonder where the mountains 

Pure ices diadem; 
Where the crystal fountains 
Mount geyser-like to them; 
And where the glacier flows and icebergs ocean gem. 

Yonder on the summit 

Around the polar star; 
Climbing up the plummet 
And coming from afar, 
See, see the dancers come in reindeer driven car! 

Dancing! Dancing! Dancing! 

Fairy, elf and sprite! 
Dancing! Dancing! Dancing! 
Phantoms of delight! 
Nature's dreams from far in poet robes bedight. 

These in white enrobe, 

As if floretted snow 
Prom yon pure silver globe 
Around their forms did blow, 
To rival and to shame all gowns others bestow. 

21 



These in blue are clad, 

As if the azure deep 
A portion of his plaid 

Had cast round them to keep, 
To be in royal style at that ecstatic leap. 

That in green is dressed, 

As if the flowers and grass 
Nature wove and pressed 

And gave to some sweet lass, 
And laughed unto herself that she would all surpass. 

That in red is tinged, 

As if the setting sun 
A straying fleece had singed 

And sent it on the run 
To fashion's famous ball and dared to be outdone. 

Here comes the poet's sons, 

Clad in robes divine; 
The royal purple ones 

He sent to lead the line 
And knew within himself that none would them outshine. 

Here comes the maiden's race, 

Dreams from her heart and mind; 
Oh the pansy pansy grace 

That round them has been twined, 
And brighter beauties still upon their faces kind! 

Others rainbow tinted, 

As stalactites of ice 
The liquid waters printed 

With their prismic device 
And gave a magic robe a joy could never price. 

Dancing! Dancing! Dancing! 

What a mazy flight! 
Dancing! Dancing! Dancing! 
On our mortal sight 
Every motion, style and grace dream ever dreamed at 

[night. 
Forward with a bound; 

Backward with a glide; 
Then turning round and round 
Till the head does dizzy ride; 
Then promenading up, and in from side to side. 

22 



Now hand in hand they go; 

Now swinging left and right; 
Now up the center so; 

Now spinning swift as sight; 
Oh it is a mazy crowd and drunken with delight! 

Fantastic, straight and fair, 

Sudden, now and then, 
Yonder, here and there, 
Unseen and in our ken; 
Mocking us and all our what and why and wher 

Rising high and oft, 

Frosty, straight and strong, 
Sinking, silent, soft, 
Narrow, thin and long, 
And if our sense could hear, Oh singing what a song 

Moving, quick and mad, 

Crystal, pure and clear, 
Conical and glad, 

Enthroned and far and near, 
Celestial and divine as heing can appear. 

Oh round and round and round 

Like figures in a dream 
These poet spirits bound 
To music like a stream 
That bursts within the heart with overflowing teem 

Dancing! Dancing! Dancing! 

Souls of electric light. 
Dancing! Dancing! Dancing! 
Essential natures bright! 
Bodiless and beautiful as ever met the sight. 

How we sluggish mortals 

Wonder and admire 
When these kingdom portals 

Are opened, and its fire 
Is flashed upon our sight with dreams of something higher! 

How earth and sea and sky 

Are lifted with delight 
When yonder there on high 

They rise upon the sight; 
And draw all nature up as moons the ocean bright! 

How the stars that sprinkle 
All the dome of space, 

23 



Twinkle, brighter twinkle 
In their nocturnal race, 
When beauties so divine are circling in their grace! 

How youth and maid on pinions 

Here hasten with entrance! 
Flaming sword dominions 
Nor hinder their advance; 
Welcome, welcome, welcome youth! Come! Mingle in the 

dance. 
How the poet's pleasure 

Is passing into pain! 
His joys like their own measure 
Is swelling every vein, 
Inspiring fancy's fairy forms around his heart and brain. 

How, how his very dreams 

Grow passionate and faint! 
Grow thirsty for new streams 
To drink away complaint 
Which these on high inspire and perfect blessing taint! 

Dancing! Dancing! Dancing! 

With the vision caught; 
Dancing! Dancing! Dancing! 
Till we are lost in thought, 
In brighter dreams divine and higher wisdom taught. 

What revelry and sports 

Upon that mountain height! 
What carnival that courts 
Such spirits of delight! 
Oh what ecstatic bliss of touch and sound and sight! 

That scene it is the joy 

That filleth nature's heart; 
The height of her employ 

Is without a price to bart 
Her happiness of life to all that of her art. 

"What divinest glory 

Before the eye has sailed? 
What harmony or story 
Or prophecy been hailed? 
What life and love and light and truth have been unveiled? 

That beauty does entrance, 

That love their hearts inflame, 

That song impel to dance, 
That hope and starry fame, 
Which we have seldom felt and never think or claim. 

24 



Where the souls are purest 

They dwell above the spheres; 
There freedom is securest, 
And life exempt from fears, 
And joy contagious, quick and sweet as that which here 

[appears. 
Where a love is living 

'Tis full and sweet and pure; 
Rejoicing in its giving 
And thus is most secure; 
The heart that gives its all and self forever shall endure. 

Where the life is deepest 

Is mountings oft and high; 
And as it upward leapest 
With joy's ecstatic cry 
It finds and lives within the life that fills the azure sky. 

Where the light is brightest 
Appears the most divine; 
Wherever beauty lightest 
It is a rainbow sign, 
That God is seeking thus to draw thy heart with his to 

[twine 
Dancing! Dancing! Dancing! 
Through the live-long night. 
Entrancing! Oh entrancing 
With magic magic might; 
For mortal and immortal are the dreams of love and light ! 



PASSED BUT NEVER PASSED. 

A maiden and her flower 
With rainbow beauty bright 

Just passed me and an hour 
Was filled with pure delight. 

Quick, quick they passed away. 

Oh never, never more 
Shall their beauty on me play 

Along this mortal shore! 






But the maiden and her flower 
Forever more will gleam 

In every rainbow bower 
I ever see or dream. 



25 



SUNRISE. 

Oh the golden morn! Oh the golden morn! 
When the heavens and earth are in beauty born; 
Are in beauty born with creations new 
On the fields, the seas and the azure blue. 

First the king of kings through the mighty deeps 
That the worlds, the dreams and all silence keeps, 
Flings a shaft of light through the fading stars 
Ere the early hour swings the portal bars. 

"With a tinge of gray he doth gently rise 
Lest he blind the earth and her mortal eyes; 
But it gently lights and both wide and high 
As his fiery steeds and his car draws night. 

The phantoms, the fears and the foes of night, 
Each is stricken through with a lance of light; 
They fly to their hope in the distant west 
And bury themselves in their mother's breast. 

Now the king of kings, Oh the king of kings! 
His glory around the horizon flings; 
Oh the promise bright that is bursting forth 
To the heights above and the south and north! 

A promise of splendid effulgence bright, 

Of softest, celestial and saving light 

On the heavens above and the earth doth break 

Till her children out of their slumbers wake. 

See the mountain peaks! There earth spirits first 
Awake as the lights of the morning burst. 
Oh the granite souls in their robes of snow 
Are awakened now and with beauty glow! 

Far along the range to their brother peaks, 
What a smile each throws and in silence speaks! 
What celestial peace and majestic power 
Does the morning give in her op'ning hour! 

See the sea-born souls of the ocean deep 
Arise from the dreams of their starry sleep! 
On the ocean's breast how they watch the plays 
Of the white, red, purple and golden blaze! 

On that trembling breast is a pavement glass 
Where processional troops in their pomp might pass; 
Oh the ocean souls from their rest below 
Do they travel there on that burnished glow? 

26 




Now the king of kings, Oh the king of kings 
Of lig'ht and of life and of all great things, 
In the ocean salt he doth first baptize 
And out of the waves with reviving rise. 

His rainbow robes he doth fling aside 
And leaves them below on the waves to ride. 
With majestic power he looks to the height 
An ascent most sheer of the bluest light. 

See the lower souls of the mother earth 
With the morning wake to a higher birth! 
They from trance awake with a vast surprise 
As the morning dawns on their op'ning eyes. 

By the lake and stream, by the forest green, 
By the mount and vale are her spirits seen; 
They people the plains to the billowy beach 
And to morning turn with a vast outreach. 

The beasts of the field all rise to the morn 

And renew the strength which the night had shorn. 

The birds in a song of enraptured praise 

Fill the earth and sky with their lyric lays. 

This immortal race that doth crown the earth 
Are again renewed in divinest birth, 
Are climbing the hills to the golden east 
And their being, purpose and passion feast. 

Now the king of kings, Oh the king of kings! 
Cloud, curtain and mist from his being flings; 
An infinite soul with infinite streams 
Of infinite life with infinite dreams. 

Far up to the height and round to the west, 
What radiant floods from his burning breast! 
All space and the gulfs now are filled with light 
And the planet souls are enrobed with might. 

What sublimest splendors are now unfurled 

On the eyes, the breast and the heart of the world! 

What glorious, effulgent and blinding blaze 

Like an infinite million of lightning rays. 

Now the great world-soul feels new passions rise 
In her bones and blood, in her breast and eyes. 
Sky, mountain and treen, sea, city and plain 
Are swept in the sweep of a choral strain. 

27 



Oh the golden morn! Oh the golden morn! 
When the heavens and earth are in beauty born; 
Are in beauty born with creations new 
On the fields, the seas and the azure blue. 

A DOT 

How great to man is man; 

In nature's vast design 
The worlds and all we scan 

Just punctuates a line. 

NIGHT. 

Oh Night! Oh Night! Oh most beloved Night! 
Presence divine! Nature of softest power! 
Being benign above what noonday's height 
In any dream conceives! Spirit with endower 
Of infinite benevolence on our 
Darkened, doubtful immortality! 
Oh soul of vast and altitudinal tower- 
ing majesty in the wide portality 
Of heaven 'neath thy resplendent bower 
Thou seemest like a living personality, 
Present, near and pure and kind to this mortality. 

How could the weary disappointed earth 
Refuse to rest beneath thy blessed feet 
When she herself and all she brings to birth 
Has been but fuel or demon-rended meat? 
On her hot heart and pulses' burning heat 
Thy hand is placed, and potent spells doth cease 
The torrid storms that through her members beat. 
Oh what a calm! Oh what a wonderous peace! 
Oh what divine tranquilities replete 
With heaven's gift! Oh what a rich release 
Upon the weary world with every day's decease! 

Nature is like a wearied child the nurse 
Cast into slumber. She lies down to rest 
Unmindful of her ancient ancient curse. 
The azure sky is of its power undressed; 
The mountains high diminish on earth's breast; 
The boundless plains unconscious lie asleep; 
And the mighty sea forever in unrest 
Doth rock the earth like a cradle on the deep. 
Earth, sea and sky, bird, beast and all are blest 
As they decline into thy sacred keep. 
Oh what a wonderous sense around the world doth creep! 

28 



Worn out and sheer exhausted by the strife 
And splendors of the day, this mortal host 
Behold and hail thee as the nurse of life. 
Turning from time's contentious lists, the ghost 
Of what each might have been, they seem almost 
To disrespect the throned and golden sire 
Of all the world. They to thy presence post 
To find life's balm as unfulfilled desire 
Thinks such to find on some enchanted coast. 
As the sun does down the western steep retire, 
Thou comest as a nurse with all the worn require. 

Thou givest gifts that more than life embalms, 
A truce to war — an interval of rest — 
A valley deep — a season of sweet calms 
When each lies down upon his mother's breast — 
A voice with sweetest nursery songs addressed 
To worn-out, jaded senses and a hand 
Soft laid upon the burning brow oppressed 
To charm the thoughts to an enchanted land. 
From thy pure heart are benedictions blest 
And restorations for mortals so unmanned 
From that exalted state high heaven for them planned. 

Sleep! Sleep! The most mysterious gift to earth! 
Life's commonest, yet most profoundest change; 
After our death as it is round our birth 
And nightly under, when, where or how we range. 
'Tis a celestial anodyne with strange- 
Est therapeutic virtues — an immersion 
Of exhausted body in the fresh grange 
Spirit of the world — a calm reversion 
To being's primal reservoirs, exchange- 
Ing loss for life; and a complete insertion 
In the infinite for to-morrow's high excursion. 

Sleep! Sleep! The most supremest gift to earth 
Great nature's touch for body and for mind; 
Sinking in the deep unconsciousness of birth 
As thou, Oh Night! doth with thy magic bind. 
Upon that breast so infinitely kind, 
Oh mother of this worn humanity! 
Thou placest each and drawest soft the blind 
Unconsciousness upon his wild insanity. 
Oh where in all the world can mortals find 
A gift like sleep on time's profanity 
And this most blinded strife and still more blind inanity? 

2.9 



Sleep! Sleep! The most divinest gift to earth! 
A stay of strife, deliverance from care, 
Oblivion soft upon the grief of mirth, 
Changed, changed so soon to madness and despair. 
Peace, peace to those ancestral strifes that wear 
The weary world! Peace, peace to the wild 
And raging beasts of life that never spare 
Humanity! Peace, peace to dark defiled 
And self-consuming passions that ever tear 
The breast! And peace, peace to fears beguiled 
Out of the night before and round our pathway piled! 

Sleep! Sleep! The most supremest gift to earth! 
The deep of man, conscience and guilt and sin 
Amid fierce storms have ever held thy worth 
Above all joys that ever yet have been. 
Peace, peace to the dark accursed kin 
Our evil deeds bring forth! Peace, peace to the hoarse 
And infinite-like curse that loud within 
Calls up for judgment! Peace, peace unto remorse, 
The angel dread that lashes mortals to in- 
sanity! And peace, peace to all that force 
Life's heavy burdened round time's deepest, darkest course! 

Upon these restless, restless hours of sleep 
When vanquished and defenseless as a child, 
Thou keepest watch above his slumbers deep 
And wardest off the dangers round him piled. 
Dost thou not sorrow upon him time defied 
And on his moans does not thy hand entwined 
With velvet kindness smooth down his riled 
And blighted spirits? Should a visit blind 
With golden visions be on his eyes beguiled 
And he awake to grasp the promise kind, 
What nature rich but thine such blessing did unbind? 

But thy greatest ministrations embrace 
The soul so sunk in time's unconscious sleep. 
The mere machine that yokes him to this base 
Of nature, thou nursest but to reap 
A thinking spirit out of the thoughtless heap. 
Thy overshadowing presence, thy speech 
Of silence vast, and the magnetic sweep 
Of thy soul over his — when they reach 
The slumberer, he riseth with a leap 
And blank astonishment that doth impeach 
The wisdom of the schools and all the day doth teach. 

30 



Thou art the teacher of the good and wise, 
And makest books and colleges a scorn 
To life — a presumptuous contempt to eyes 
That in time's travailing agonies are born. 
Who walks with thee after the day has torn 
Thou teachest what these pedants never dream; 
And books of lore sublime as is the unworn 
Volumns of eternity open and gleam 
Upon the sight like thy starry deep unshorn. 
From these great books and from thine eyes there stream 
An infinity of thought that strength alone can theme. 

Forth from the deep of thy maternal heart 
Into the deep of man so caught between 
The meshes of the worlds something doth start 
With high new-conscious sense. His spirit lean 
Of life, now hungers with desire for the scene 
That being opes before him. Upon the brink 
Of matter dark thou drawest off the screen 
From the mighty worlds that forever shrink 
From sight by their effulgent brightness. They wean 
Him from himself, and as his soul doth drink 
The vision of the worlds he rises hence to think. 

Thou art the mother of divine inspire! 
The anointing horns are in thy sacred keep 
And free thou art in pouring out their fire. 
Forth from the earth life's mighty passions leap 
To walk with thee beneath the blazing deep 
Of heaven. The soul unto its height and reach 
Is drawn out by the visions thou dost heap 
Upon the eyes, the rich poetic speech 
Of lofty conversation, and the sweep 
Of mighty thoughts beyond the starry beach, 
Which thou and thine to men in solemn silence teach. 

Thou bringest up this soul to front itself; 
And fronting self it looks straight in the eyes 
Of some far higher Soul who projects his wealth 
Of life in personalities that rise 
In vast proportions. The soul that lies 
In slumber bound thou bringest up to feel 
Its undimensionedness, and strength supplies 
To front the universe. Oh what unseal 
Of passion pure that with expansion flies 
To being's farthest bounds! Calls the ideal 
To earth and answers man the reverberating peal. 

31 



Thou nursest into the immortal mind 
The ruling concepts of the universe, 
The indestructible, established kind 
For which the worlds are void unless they nurse. 
Thou bringest God and right and law, the curse 
And blessing, good and ill, the mighty poles 
That swing creation and the ages verse 
Unto their noblest song. Small circled souls 
Thou liftest from the deep and dark immerse 
Of sense to fellowship the life that rolls 
Through this vast universe unto its distant goals. 

Upon the sun-paved heightless, heightless height 
The spirit stands, looks far below and round; 
Then is a moment's vain and proud delight 
And then an awe and solemness profound 
Like massive worlds that weight it to the ground. 
Then slowly comes a recreation new 
That recreates the spirit to the mound 
And from the vast are powers and passion true 
That fill the soul unto its boundless bound. 
Conscious and wise and bold to dare and do 
The cosmic spirit stands and doth his empire view. 

With thee, Oh Night! along the starry height 
The spirit walks among the constellations, 
Engirded with omnipotential might 
And dowered with supremest dominations. 
The noblest, most prophetic of creations 
And sceptered by all intellectual moral power 
Soul rules and guides the mighty congregations 
Of golden suns and worlds that round them flower. 
From star to star soul mounteth up the stations 
And on the height doth stand a godlike tower 
The hope of all the globes, almost a god in dower. 

There to the soul thou dost most free unroll 
The camera films of ancient ancient time 
And there upon thy moving picture scroll 
The evolutions from their beginnings prime. 
The golden suns and worlds that around them chime, 
The vast biologists of monstrous form and might, 
The savage brutes that to the human climb, 
Creations high of intellectual light, 
In all their struggles, change and growth sublime, 
They all are flashed in images most bright 
Out of the darkness past upon the burning sight. 

32 



When thou dost draw the curtains of the morn, 
In, in these stream effulgencies of splendor; 
The heart and mind are by the vision torn 
And all the powers unto the dreams surrender. 
The soul sublime with glorious train attender 
Doth mount and climb the undeveloped spheres 
And Science wise and Virtue doth commend her 
To nature and the rich revolving years. 
The future dreams which thou, Oh Night! doth tender, 
Doth blot thee out, thy presence disappears; 
On, on, we onward march life's high divine careers. 

Oh Night! Oh Night! Oh most beloved Night! 
Mother and nurse and prophet of the child 
Designed to rise to being's awful height 
Upon this base thou hast so glorious piled. 
Oh Magnanimous! Majestic! Undefiled! 
The solitude and silence is delight 
In thy society, and man so time beguiled 
Becomes with thee the true cosmopolite 
In the universe that has upon him smiled. 
Few, few are dearer than thou unto our sight, 
Oh most beloved Night! Oh most beloved Night! 



CONSIDER THE LILIES! 

Look yonder on the lilies! 

They toil not neither spin; 
Yet kings in royal splendor 

Like them can never win 
Such robes of flowing loveliness, 

Such purity within. 

They grow in foul and merky soil, 
Mid slime and stones and root; 

Mid crawling thongs of loathsome name, 
The kindred of the newt; 

Where one would never dream to find, 
Life, flower and such a fruit. 

Their looms of life they ever ply, 

No worry, toil or fear; 
They never feel our fever haste 

And never shed a tear, 
Nor fade in beauty dreading lest 

The autumn frosts be near. 

33 



They simply live and dreanfupon 

Their nurse's beating heart, 
Who sends through all their gentle frame 

A love that does impart 
A peace that stilleth every fear 

Life, dream or death may start. 

So living daily in this trust 

From their unkindly mould, 
Their crystal souls are nourished 

And to our eyes unfold 
A body of snow purity 

Around a heart of gold. 

Oh soul, live like the lilies! 

Just trust thyself to life! 
Why battle nature's ancient way 

And fight with sword and knife? 
Fight nature, nature will thee plunge 

Still deeper in the strife. 

Oh let these thoughts the lilies sow 

Fall deep in thy dark mould! 
The good in soul will sure uprise 

And life may then unfold 
In robes of noble purity 

Around a heart of .gold. 



SONG OF THE GREEN TREE. 

My evergreen soul of celestial birth 
At the dawn of life descended to earth 
From the heavens above where the best is born 
To mantle the earth with a bright adorn. 

There the soul divine that is full of life 
Breathed into me strength for a mortal strife; 
With the greenest hope of an azure birth 
For a place and power I came to the earth. 

A germ with the laws and the rights of life 
I was planted deep in the midst of strife. 
The great from the least have been ever grown 
And round and beneath are the overthrown. 

Then the vital heart of the world-soul sent 
Such an impulse quick that the night was rent 
And the infant germ sprang swift to the light 
As a life that grows with a spirit's might. 

34 






The passionate powers of that vernal clime 
Soon nourished the birth to a noble prime. 
Behold! In the world now I stand with pride 
While all other growths are shamed from my side. 

Both the heavens above and the earth below 
And the stores between with the overflow 
Of a generous heart and exhaustless wealth 
Have poured in me gifts of abounding health. 

My loom is the darkest and softest kind 
That ever a soul in the earth did bind; 
Around me it lays with a tender press, 
Brotection and warmth of an under dress. 

The green grass above doth carpet me round 
With its velvet touch and its murmuring sound; 
There is always a soft and a bright adorn 
Where the roots and knots of strength are born. 

My out-reaching roots with a sacred thirst 
Press into the dark and a way doth burst 
Till the moisture cool and the water's sound 
Both quicken and guide where the life is found. 

Deep rejoicing then at the river's brink 
Her being so crystal my own doth drink; 
I drink to the full of immortal life 
And renew my strength for the daily strife. 

The tropical breeze with their laden breath, 
So vital they quicken the winter's death, 
Their spirit and passion through every pore 
Flows into my heart to the very core. 

The temperate winds with their zonal strength 
Have blown on my breast and my breadth and length 
Have expanded rich as the middle clime 
Doth the spirits nurse to the noblest prime. 

When the Arctic blasts with their fury burst 
I was roused to strength as their spirits versed; 
Like a wrestling giant through the midnight hours 
I girdled my loins with their ancient powers. 

The unkindled sun with his vital heat, 
His rainbow spirits and his rythmic beat: 
Is there aught in earth or the heavens above 
So bright as the smile of his morning love? 
Or deep as the calm of Ins good-night kiss 
As it falls on my heart with its lingering bliss? 

35 



What a magic strange is the chemic power 

That changeth all ill to his bright endower? 

He taketh the world as a sacred birth 

And feeds her with strength and with azure mirth; 

And out of the deep with his golden might 

He has raised me up in my towering height. 

The radiant beams of his lightning glance 
Shoot into the heart like a vital lance: 
And my spirits rise as a dream doth leap 
Like a breath of life from the land of sleep, 
Then it spreads its face to the morning sun 
And feels that its course has but just begun. 

When the kingless king has retired to rest 
And the twilight curtains are round his breast, 
The night with the moon and her silver spheres 
Hourly bathe my brow with their dewy tears. 

Their coolness revives as an icy draught 
Which the slumb'ring day doth rejoice to quaff; 
Doth rejoice to quaff with a large desire 
In his slumber dreams of tomorrow's fire. 

So the dewy night and the icy stars 
From their lucid urns and their crystal jars, 
Pour upon my head their divinest dew 
Till the morning dawns on the seas of blue. 

Oh that azure dome, Oh that azure dome 
That circles me round and afar doth roam! 
What a fulness of life doth her silence keep 
For the earth and the stars she embosoms deep! 

To but feel that sense round the spirit roll 
Is infinite life in the finite soul. - 

Who could live with her in a fresh inspire 
And wish aught else in his best desire! 

There is room, vast room in the azure height, 
Vision, gladness, strength and a keen delight; 
There is victory, song and a mighty glow 
For souls that to her in their natures grow. 

There is life divine in the azure skies 
That diviner grows as we higher rise; 
On my only home is that azure dome 
And the earth beneath with its sacred loam! 

36 



I uncrown my head to her liquid light; 

I outstretch my arms to enfold her might; 

I open my all to her rich bestow; 

As her spirits fall to the height I grow. 

The covetous clouds from the ocean's breast 
From her scooped trough and her white-capped crest, 
From the mountain height and her snowy gleam, 
And the fountain there and her icy stream, 

From the sun-crowned morn that so quick distils, 
And the billowy west with her dewy hills, 
From the Arctic zone and the south more warm, 
The spirit so vital in every form, 

They unfold most deep in their fleecy dress 
And circle around as no mind can guess, 
Till the filters pure of the upper air 
Doth embalm the rain as a treasure rare: 

Then the fanning winds to a marching strain 
Blow their shadow sweep o'er the sea and plain, 
Till they seek me out and at noontide hour 
Long bathe my soul with reviving power. 

Then the circling veins and the tissues dry 
Drink, drink to their full with a thankful sigh; 
As in me it flows with a pulsing pain 
I can hear it sing with a joyful strain. 

Then the rib-like mail that is round my breast 
Peels the strength of life and its joints are pressed 
By resistless force, and the new expand 
Forms another rib with a tighter band. 

Then my knotted roots deeper sink from sight 
And my brow ascends to a higher height. 
My arms reach again farther east and west 
And my branches all are with freshness dressed. 

Then my joyous leaves in their life of bliss, 
Like spirits in love with each other kiss, 
Till my central heart feels a vital glow 
And a greener gladness to each I throw. 

Is another form on the mother's breast 

So sound in heart and with strength so dressed? 

Is another birth of our mother earth 

With a greener hope and more glowing mirth? 

37 



Ye heavens and earth that doth all renew 
Look upon me now and my greatness view! 
Is there aught in life that was ever born 
Adds more to her pride and her bright a*dorn? 



THE PANSY. 

Oh pansy, pansy bright! 

Oh most divinest flower! 
Thy presence on the sight 

Is a magic magic hour, 
Enthralling us with strange, enchanting spell and power. 

Oh Spirit the divinest! 

Most beautiful on earth! 
The being thou enshrinest 
Is a heav'n smiling mirth, 
An angel princess' dream or a royal poet's birth. 

There's beauty in the spring, 

On treen and seas and skies, 
Round every living thing 
That blossoms, sings, or flies; 
But in thy measure more, more, more within thee lies. 

The Artist of all art 

In b.ringing thee to birth, 
Took thee from out his heart 
And breathed in thee with mirth 
The essence of his life and thought thee just as worth 

As golden suns on high 

Whose splendors rich and bright 
Forever blinding fly 
To worlds of noon and night 
Inviting us to see all rainbow souls of light. 

All beauty loving hearts, 

All beauty loving eyes, 
All artists and all arts 

First see thee with surprise, 
A vision all divine from spheres beyond the skies. 

The azure souls on high, 

The spirits of the morn, 
Delights that sing and fly 

With more than earth adorn 
With pleasure gaze on thee and new they all are born. 

38 



The children, oh the child, 
Life's uncorrupted heart! 
In garden, park or wild 

For thee they all would bart, 
And oft with screams of joy swift toward thy presence 

dart. 
The maidens, oh, the maids! 
The flowers of life divine! 
The modern glowing naiads 
That never fade or tine! 
The happy dreams of life in whom life doth enshrine! 

They look on thee and cry: 

"Oh roots, flowers and vine, 
Poetics on the eye , 
Beauty, life and love and wine 
Be planted in my heart and be forever mine!" 

A lovely drunken boy 

"When dew upon thee lay, 
Plucked thee in frenzied joy 
And what he could not say 
Felt in your passion deep the love that did him sway. 

Then trusting his delight 

Upon thy magic fame 
He sent thee to the sprite 

Who did his spirit flame, 
And waves of warmest life across his being came. 

She bound thee on her breast; 

She often stooped to kiss; 
She heard thy whispers blest 
And felt a lover's bliss 
And saw the visions bright the lovers never miss. 

Then deep within her heart 

She folded thee to rest, 
As in poet books thou art 

In visions folded blest, 
Till memory's golden leaves were in thy essence dressed 

The poet looked on thee 

And pasesd into a trance; 
Beauty and purity 

Did blind his mortal glance, 
And whirled him in a round of high ecstatic dance. 

39 



Then, then ye calmed him down 

And fed the deep desire 
That beneath his singing gown 

Was like a heart of fire, 
But infinitely calm with the love it did desire. 

Again ye hear him far 

With flight divine and bold 
To evening's shining star 
That new Eldorados hold 
And where the sunny mountains he climbs for purest gold. 

From evening's dream and rhyme 

Thy magic doth deliver; 
Thou bearest to the clime 
Of morning and its giver; 
And set him sailing down a golden-breasted river. 

Thou changest time and place 

And man and life and all; 
Thy beauty doth displace 

The things that us enthrall, 
So divine art thou and thine on creatures of the "fall." 

Oh pansy, pansy bright! 

Oh most divinest flower! 
Thy presence on the sight 

Is a magic magic hour, 
Enthralling us with strange, enchanting spell and power. 

Thy colors are divine 

In every place and time. 
Color to a spirit fine 
Has spells of magic prime; 
But thou surpassest all within this earthly clime. 

The purple of the kings, 

The purple of the arts, 
The purple deep that flings 

An enchantment on all hearts, 
Is thine the first of all with the solemness it starts. 

When thou art gold, the gold 

Is more golden than the sun; 
The bullion kept from old 

And never yet been run 
Was poured into thy heart when morning first begun. 

40 



When white, thy stainless white 

Is like a flake of snow, 
A fitting robe to dress 
Thy spirit here below, 
For wtite is most divino in worlds of sin and woe. 

And blue, Oh blessed blue! 

Oh nursling of the sky! 
A patch to lift the view 

Unto the stretches high, 
From whence we weak return to rest on thee the eye. 

All rainbow light and shade 

Is on thy gentle breast. 
The plushes on thee laid 
No poet ever guessed; 
No beauty, bride or dream such velvet cheeks have blessed. 

Beneath thy beauty fine, 

Beneath thy magic light, 
'Neath the images divine 

That round thee shineth bright 
Is something richer far for pilgrims of the night. 

Thou has passion the divinest 

We mortals ever feel, 
Though the body it enshrinest 

And its spiritual appeal 
Is lost upon the heart the selfish world doth seal. 

Thou hast passion the supremest 

Of all that love or pine; 
Within thy bosom seemest 

A beauty that doth shine 
Out of a paradise when love is most divine. 

Thou has passion the intensest 

The world doth ever see. 
The spirit thou infencest 
The infinite must be; 
His very heart of purity he has enshrined in thee. 

Thou hast passion the serenest, 

The deepest, rich and pure, 
That no sorrow ever leanest 
And no mortal can secure, 
And which we never dream but when we grief endure. 

41 



When gazing on thy grace, 

When looking in thy heart, 
Thou dost change our time and place, 

Thou doth swing the gates apart 
Between the world that is and that from whence thou art. 

When gazing on thy grace 

We are ushered out of sense, 
Ushered, ushered to the place 
That is far beyond us hence, 
And the heart within us melts from its stony hardness 

deDse. 

When gazing on thy grace, 

What sorrow, grief and tears 
Sometimes bedew the face 
And wash our guilty years 
That were flung to sin and waste from the summit of the 

spheres! 

Wlien gazing on thy grace, 

When looking deep in thee 
We are borne out of the race, 

And with warm tears flowing free 
Are lost to time and sense in a pure eternity. 



A FLOWER. 

A blossom burst at dewy morn 

And died before the night. 
A beast that did all beauty scorn 

Fierce trampled out its light. 

But not before a passerby 

Did on its beauty feed 
The passion of a poet's eye, 

The hunger of his need. 

He turned the passioned rainbow light 

And beauty most divine, 
To words and images as bright 

As love could see or sign. 

Then, then he flung them to the wind, 
To wind and earth and sky; 

Now up and down before mankind 
They live and cannot die. 

42 



THE SENSE OF MORN. 

Oh the golden morn! Oh the golden morn! 
When the heavens and earth are in beauty born, 
Are in beauty born with creations new 
On the fields, the seas and the azure blue. 

All things in earth, from her heart to her frame, 
From her outer robes to her spirit's flame, 
Rise up with a sense and a soul divine 
Till the very flesh with the light doth shine. 

All things in the skies, the seas and the earth 
Now are born and robed and are crowned with mirth; 
Are singing, shining, soaring and glowing 
With the morning sun that around is flowing. 

The heavens above to its heightless height 
Is bluest, serenest and softest light; 
And the earth below is as bright and green 
As the springtime morning has ever seen. 

The beasts of the field all rise to the morn 
And renew the strength which the night had shorn. 
The birds in a song of enraptured praise 
Fill the earth and sky with their lyric lays. 

The arms and the heads of the forest treen 
Are dressed in a new and vital green. 
The grass and the vines now are wet with dew 
And each sparkling drop is a diamond new. 

The flowers in their beauty and rainbow di.eht 
Now their inmost hearts unfold to the light; 
As some to the sight so some to the sense, 
But all from the heart are impassioned tense. 

See the fountain streams from the mountain steep 
Toward the rising sun in their gladness leap! 
And the placid lake is a polished glass 
Where the sun sees himself as a molten mass. 

See the silver mists swift evaporate 

And form into clouds on their high estate! 

How their festooned robes and their feathery wings 

Are embroidered bright by the king of kings! 

How the atmospheres are renewed divine 
And all nostrils sniff with a pleasure fine! 
The morning breeze as it flies from the west, 
It quickens the heart with a vital zest. 

43 



"What infinite reaches of azure sky! 

What infinite powers in her bosom lie! 

What infinite measures doth nature ope 

From the earth's quick heart to the summit's cope! 

What infinite beauty doth crown the height! 
What infinite calms and supreme delight! 
What infinite hope and infinite mirth 
Does the morning feed to each bosomed birth! 

The heavens above and the earth below 

And the breath between with its ozone glow, 

All turn with delight to the golden east 

And their being and purpose and passion feast. 

They turn and they look and they drink and glow 
As the life of life does around them flow; 
As the life of life does within them burst 
They have found for what all creations thirst. 

What a flow of life and each burning breast 
Feels the hours as one most supremely blest! 
They are winged above and the overflow 
Bursts from common things with a glorious glow. 

What a sense of strength in material things! 
For the earth's backbone and her rib-like rings, 
And the giant muscles upon her bound 
Overflow with life which the hour has found! 

What a sense of peace like a vision bright, 
Like a silver lake, like a rainbow sight, 
Like a music sweet of the sweetest things, 
That can find no note so in silence sings! 

What a sense of joy and of boundless hope 
Does the golden morn to all being ope! 
Beast, forest and field and to all mankind 
Life is pulsing streams that are passion wined. 

What a self-sufficient, sustaining sense, 
Expansion, fulness and passion intense, 
Of harmony, beauty, victorious power 
Breathes into and makes the immortal hour! 

With most generous heart both the heavens and earth 
Are taking and giving each others mirth. 
Soul, senses and gifts but for words too fine 
Make the hour and place as an altar shrine. 

44 



Is this the return of creation's hour 

When the world came forth like a perfect flower, 

And the Artist's eye with a joy divine 

Looked upon the scene with a pleasure fine? 

Is this the season's appointed time 
When nature and all to their summits climb, 
And with solemn joy here their worships lift 
To the Giver great for their being's gift? 

Is this the hour that doth resurrect 

Time's impassioned births that the graves select, 

When beauty, perfection and glory arise 

To a height undreamed 'neath the former skies? 

Or is this the bright and prophetic dream 
Which the prophet saw on his vision stream, 
When material change and millennial day 
On his spirit burst with immortal sway? 

Or is this a glimpse of the happy land 
O'er the crystal sea on the golden strand, 
Where the life of all is forever love 
And forever rise in a course above? 

'Tis the nature rich of the universe; 
'Tis the golden glory all things unpurse; 
'Tis the lower real that delights to nurse 
A prophetic race to a royal verse. 

'Tis the face of Life that doth us invite; 
'Tis the smile of Love to a course of right; 
'Tis the physic Soul that doth bid arise 
The nature divine that within us lies. 

Oh the golden morn! Oh the golden morn! 
When the heavens and earth are in beauty born, 
Are in beauty born with creations new 
On the fields, the seas and the azure blue. 



SWEET PEAS. 

Sweet peas and sweet peas 
And hosts of butterflies 

Drunken on the summer breeze 
Intoxicate the eyes. 



45 



THE BOY'S WORLD. 

1 wish I were a boy again! 

Oh unforgotten days! 
Ye differ from the stifling fen 

That now around me lays. 
The world was every dawning new; 

Suns pure and bright as gold; 
At noon or night the azure blue 

Rained pleasures most untold. 
The grass was green and dear the trees, 

The flowers and birds divine; 
The stream did sing and on the breeze 

Was more than poet's line. 
Then nature's heart pulsed music deep 

To me upon her breast; 
My life to hers did swiftly leap, 

I danced her round with zest. 
I did but live, I did not dream 

Of now, then, that or this; 
Life so intense was like a stream 

Of most ecstatic bliss. 
Far more than ever now it seems; 

With dark clouds for its foil 
The sun is clothed with beauty's dreams 

And round her rainbows coil. 
Here in the city's heartless heart, 

No nature nor her grace; 
In street or hall or shop or mart, 

Her soul can none embrace. 
Oh who would live on floors of stone 

With iron walls around! 
His strips of sky unseen, unknown, 

And strife the spirit bound. 
Oh who would live beneath the dome 

Of manhood's iron care! 
From paradise to chaos roam 

And on his spirit bear 
The scenes that once from morn till eve 

He moved through with delight 
And not his loss with envy grieve 

And wish return they might. 
I pine to be a happy boy 

Harmonious with the morn, 
With every hour a jeweled joy 

And care and grief a scorn. 
I pine, Oh nature! for thy life 

Pulsed rich into my breast, 

46 



Thy mingling powers, but none at strife, 

All action, yet all rest. 
I pine, I pine at night and morn 

To be as once with thee, 
Again a boy with heart untorn, 

Young, strong and pure and free; 
To be again a happy boy, 

Full, full of life and wine, 
Himself and all the world a joy, 

A promise and divine. 



THE CONSTELLATIONS. 

Oh Night, Oh Night! Oh glorious, glorious night! 
Though born and bred and destined for the day 
Man's spirit leaps with infinite delight 
When he is caught by thy resistless sway 
And walks with thee along thy starry way. 
Mother and queen and goddess most divine, 
A matchless grace doth round thy presence play 
And atmospheres we mortals drink as wine. 
Thou liftest soul and girdest up this clay 
To stand and think as Time's hand doth untwine 
The universes vast that round these portals shine. 

Oh what a sight for lofty contemplrtion, 
For intellectual strength, archangel thought, 
Silence, passion, wonder, admiration, 
And all the powers of being over fraught! 
What boundless elements are here together brought 
To mind destroy and nobler recreate 
To something like the Infinite! All nought 
And insignificant is man's estate 
Of genius-ripe conception, when he is caught 
Into the starry heavens to contemplate 
The vast establishments that round him roll in state. 

Oh what a sight for admiration's eyes 
Is high enthroned on everlasting stations! 
What white intensities within the skies 
Here radiate their lightning scintillations! 
What majesties of light! Illuminations 
Of magnificence! Effulgencies of bright- 
Est splendor and flashing coruscations 
Athwart the answering canopy of night! 
What immensities and vast creations 
Of solar brightness and incandescence white 
Are flaming round the dome on all created sight! 

47 



Spirit of night, I see thy glorious 
Constellations, thy constellations bright 
And so supremely poised on their victorious 
Stations like thrones in prominential sight 
Upon creation's lofty heightless height. 
Thy constellations, like world divinities, 
Are with such striking majesty bedight 
They rise among the vast infinities 
That crown the universe with an effulgent light. 
These spirits seem clothed with sublime sublimities 
That more than equipoise all mortal magnanimities. 

These high celestial pageantries, the marches 
Of these splendors and bright majestic dowers 
O'er the else unpictorial walls and arches 
Are like creation dreams marching amid the hours. 
The procession of these congregated powers 
Crossing the expanse in their nocturnal 
Courses, these circles round their annual bowers 
Were all burst forth in bright hibernal 
Brilliancy or pale as summer heat devours, 
These marches of processional pomp supernal, 
'Tis but the universe along its path eternal. 

Spirit of Night, I see thy glorious 
Constellations, a noble consanguinity 
And ancient fellowship in victorious 
Exaltation circling the vast infinity 
Of being. These in their high sublimity 
Flash recognition to all the kingly race; 
Or the esemplastic spirit of affinity 
Flaming through all the hemispheral space 
Answers each or some enthroned divinity. 
What incandescent eyes and lightning grace 
Each has and flaming throws upon each others face? 

Behold, Behold! Here is the most supremest 
Reach of beauty in nature's plastic arts, 
A perfect vision of the life that streamest 
Within the deep of her deep heart of hearts. 
The spirit of sublimest beauty starts 
Into virtue here, and round each presence high 
Nature casts a fashion that imparts 
Rich overflowing glories on the sky. 
The beautifuls on these celestial charts 
Enchant the strength of Life's poetic eye, 
Sustain her passioned heart as they poise and swing and fly. 

Spirit of Night, I love thy glorious 
Constellations, established on the height 

48 



Of time and forever more victorious 
Above the gulf. Ye are a vast delight, 
And what mysterious transcendencies of might 
Sustain ye on the blank and hungry void 
As the world's best stability! Thy bright 
Illuminations could seem to be destroyed 
By breath, but this emblazonry of night, 
So blessed, so beatific and enjoyed 
Is more than is the world by firm foundations buoyed. 

What high and pure sublimities shine here, ,.', 
Of mystery, of wonder and of awe, 
And of those breathless contemplations dear 
Where time's creations unto their highest draw! 
What majesty and sovereignty of law! 
What incarnations of almighty power! 
What transformation from the rude raw 
Elements of chaos into this bower 
Of firmamental brightness; Life saw 
The garnished heavens and humbled in that hour 
Loves more thy solemn dome than noonday's golden tower. 

""Spirit of Night, I love thy glorious 
Constellations in that ideal state 
Designed for them ere their victorious 
Emergence from the dark contentious gate 
Of chaos. Supernity is like a weight 
Of glory on them and the immortal 
Is burning in their exaltations great. 
In the else black concave they make a courtal 
Majesty and magnificent estate. 
What strength conceives a more emblazoned portal 
Around this travailing earth, around her courses mortal? 

Yonder the Great Bear prowls around the pole; 
There Cassiopeia and her family reign; 
Here Taurus with his brilliant clusters roll; 
Near Orion's belted strength is a plain 
Triangle of three glorious stars. The strain 
Of the Harp and Aquila's boundless flight 
Hear and behold. See! Sagittarius has lain 
His arrow to the Serpent's heart and white 
Arcturus lights the maid without a stain. 
The classic symbols dwindle left and right; 
The poles are scant of stars, the center crowded bright. 

Right through these constellations high, the moon, 
An earth-born child adopted by the night, 
Swift circles like a princess of the noon 
Though with some veil upon her face of light. 

49 



That soul of splendor across the bright 
Concave is to the world a warm desire 
And forevermore a passion and delight. 
Oh Virgin Soul of pure and palest fire, 
Sail on thy course and on earth's lifted sight 
Thy smile shall rain the magic of inspire 
And every wax and wane shall make thy presence nigher! 

As long as I shall tread this mortal sphere 
Oh let me rise unto some tower or hill! 
Divorce my heart from toil and strife and fear 
To gaze upon the constellations till 
This finite void that infinite doth fill! 
Let the great dreams of my departed prime, 
The cosmic passions that once with awe did thrill, 
The ripest thoughts Astronomy can chime 
All mingle and upon my spirit spill 
The contemplations of majesties sublime 
Eternity hath spread around these doors of time! 



THE ECHO. 

Hush, hush my heart, be still! 

Listen with bated breath! 
Silence thy being fill 
As motionless as death! 
A soft celestial voice; a world for what she saith! 

Oh hush my heart! The birth 

And being most divine 
I ever heard on earth, 
Between her world and mine 
Is singing, and my life for hers I would resign. 

Oh matchless soul of song! 

Spirit of melody! 
The leader of the throng 

Of lyric natures free: 
The most divinest life inspires the heart in thee. 

Thy spirit Nature greets; 

Her singers silent be; 
Wave, stream and tree entreats 

Thy music rich and free, 
And drink and drink and drink thy living melody. 

Unseen, enchanting fairy! 
Unknown, beloved sprite! 

50 



On ether wings most airy 
With far encircling flight, 
Round lake and o'er the hills thy song rolls with delight, 

Awaking joy so pure 

The souls that hear thee sing, 
The strain cannot endure 

And from their hearts they fling 
Their love and joy and praise and toward thee nearer 

spring. 
Joyous, intense and clear, 

A song new come to birth; 
A singer from a sphere, 
A bright and lyric mirth, 
Who sings to ease her heart and not for ours of earth. 

Pure and liquid soul: 

Dewy and rich and deep! 
Winds, clouds and azure roll 
The notes they cannot keep, 
And now they forth through thee to vocal being leap. 

Oh soft and dying tone! 

More far and faint and dear! 
A music seraph's moan 

In his beloved's ear 
Is mingled with the breath which now I faintly hear. 

Fainter and more faint, 

Softer and more sweet, 
As a maiden saint 

Breathes when the angel feet 
Bear her lily, lily soul far down earth's shadowed street. 

Painter and more faint, 

Your music is no more. 
As last words of a saint 
Speak to our spirit's core, 
Your silence is a song of sweet and lasting lore. 

Now silence girdeth round 
But spirits listening be, 
Straining in the calm profound 
To hear the measures free 
That ever rise and ring as memory thinks of thee. 

Oh clear and crystal singer! 

Again to life awake! 
Oh clear and crystal singer! 
Across the moon-light lake 
Your happy happy elfin horns, shake out again, Oh shake! 

51 



Awake again, Oh wake! 

My heart for song doth pine! 
Thy lips again unbreak, 

And thy sweet voice divine 
Will be a lasting strain as on me ye untwine! 

Hark! Does the deepest fountain, 

The lake's divinest daughter, 
Love the snowy mountain, 
The soul above the water, 
And whispers now a song as fervent love has taught her? 

Does now some silver dream 

From icy summits free 
Through rocky gorges stream 
With fall and foam and glee 
And sing his bridal song as happy as can be? 

Does the moon's bright soul 

Touch her golden lyre , 
And drink night's dewy bowl 

A new song to inspire 
For her other soul of deep and pure desire? 

Is heaven's world of love 

Here the nearest earth? 
Does some warm turtle dove, 

O'er her dearest birth 
Now throw upon our ears her first, sweet, mother mirth? 

Has some sweet fairy sprite 

From Paradise just fell? 
In her descending flight 

Tinkles her fairy bell 
In silver silver tones that swell and ever swell? 

Oh spirit, who art thou? 

Whence and what and where? 
Could I but see thee now, 
Thy being pure and fair 
Would be a sight divine which love would treasure rare. 

But better thus unseen 

Like all things most divine; 
For nothing comes between 

Thy heart and hungry mine, 
And that encircling heart which all our hearts enshrine. 

52 



Oh echo, thy refrain 
Is like a life to me! 
It passes through my brain 
And kindred finds to thee; 
Waking the sleeping dreams in coldest memory. 

I listen, yes I listen! 

I know! I know! I know! 
Mine eyes with sorrows glisten, 

My heart doth overflow, 
Spirit of innocence from paradise, I trow! 

Thy spirit once was mine, 

And I was like to thee; 
We both were then divine 
And loved with purity; 
But life divorces hearts that in each other be. 

Soul of celestial dower! 
Angel of early years! 
The music of that hour 
That hour still more endears; 
To hear thee once again now melts my frozen tears! 

Oh hear me as I cry! 

Come to me once again! 
Leave thy blue native sky! 

Abide with mortal men! 
Forgive and lead me from this dark and stifling fen ! 

Oh dost thou turn away? 

I hear thy velvet feet 
More faintly as I pray. 

Shall this new warming meet 
No hope that here or hence thy spirit I shall greet? 

More fainter and more faint 

I hear thee die away, 
As dieth my complaint 

For lack of words to pray 
For thee and thine and all of that eclipsed day. 

Beyond the hills afar 

I hear thee going fleet, 
Go, going to the star 

Of morning, morning sweet 
And I would follow fast in hope we there may meet. 

Sing, sing Ye Echo Souls! 
Oh often sing to me! 

53 



Divinest music rolls 

And leads where none can see 
When e'er I hear your sweet, celestial melody. 

Sing, sing Ye Echo Sprites! 

Your silence oft unbind! 
From heaven's golden heights 

Ye open on my mind 
Such dreams of purity as lift and cleanse and blind. 

Sing, sing Ye Echo Hours! 

Although ye wake the tears 
Ye lift me to the towers 
With virtue of the spheres, 
And life's golden summits pure to the spirit far appears. 

DOWN AND OUT. 

Oh world and all ye elemental powers 
Of nature! Ye titanic incarnations 
Of unembodied being! Ye vast endowers 
Of energy and passioned imputations 
Form the great soul of cosmic circulations! 
All organic and inorganic forces 
Forever fresh and leaping with elations! 
All breath and life from your eternal sources 
Destroying worlds for greater new creations! 
Vast universe upon your endless courses, 
Oh listen to the song when age our youth unhorses! 

Oh day and night! Ye seasons and successions! 
Majestic powers whose panoramic round 
Sweeps over earth as pageantry processions! 
Pulsating earth whose mighty passions bound 
With earthquake throes far in their deep profound! 
Old ocean's vast immeasureable might 
Girding the globe with thunder singing sound! 
Ye mountain ranges forever more bedight 
With solemness and majesty encrowned! 
Canyons, rivers, falls, forests, plains and height, 
Oh listen to the song that man doth often write! 

Ye wild and lawless elements of storm, 
Nature's maniacs in their delirious mirth, 
Night, rain and clouds with angry passions warm 
That rise and drive like furies over earth! 
Ye whirling winds that some convulsive birth 
Sets fiercely free with sweeping rage and snort! 
Ye lightning bolts black heaven's tempestuous girth 
Rains like a fire from an artillery fort! 

54 



Ye thunders vast like chaos bellowing forth 
Globe rending sounds that rock each cave and court, 
Oh listen to the song time's changes fierce extort! 

There was a time, glorious, memorial time! 
When ye were all my passion and delight. 
More elemental than your own souls sublime 
I found in ye the kindred of my sprite. 
Like and unlike your essences so white 
I felt the pulse of this vast universe, 
And from the gulf of boundless day and night 
Ye passed in me and did my spirit nurse. 
The chaos and the cosmic powers that fight 
Did girdle me, and often did immerse 
In those contentions vast that war against the curse. 

I was the chiefest element of life. 
The cosmic passions my being thrilled and thrilled. 
Nature's fountains with measures rich and rife 
Flowed into me with floods that over-filled. 
Drunken, insane, delirious and unstilled, 
One of nature's infinite successions, 
And subject though intelligent and willed, 
To their enchantment, magic and impressions. 
The reddest life her spirit ever spilled 
Burst into me with impulse and transgressions 

That spurned the common course, possessed by high 

possessions. 
Ye mighty powers, my kindred and my song! 
I call ye now to witness to the truth. 
When I was young, impulsive, swift and strong, 
Did I not leave man's safe and shelt'ring booth 
To greet the storms that burst with fierce unruth? 
When lightning deluged both the heavens and earth, 
When thunders roared like monsters most uncouth, 
When hurricanes swept raging round the girth, 
Bare-browed and open breasted did my youth 
Not wander forth and centered in the dearth, 

Mingled my life with thine in most delirious mirth? 

Have I not climbed and traveled round and round 
These azure deeps of palpitating skies? 
In ocean's pure and fathomless profound 
Did I not sink and another man arise? 
These mountain ranges on my astonished eyes 
Subdued and filled with transcendental might. 
Nature's convulsions and impassioned cries 
Were reproduced within my narrow sprite. 
The great dynamic souls that energize 
The universe with my soul did unite 
And shocks and shocks of life sent through me with deligh 

55 



Oh power sublime, thou wert my element. 
I lived and moved and had my life in power. 
My spirit felt the touch of the omnipotent 
As passions vast my being did endower. 
These more than infinite energies that tower 
On glorious night I loved to contemplate 
And sometimes sunk out of the mortal hour 
And rose into the forces that create. 
This glorious, effulgent, constellated bower 
With momentums of eternity and fate 
I yielded to and breasted till power did satiate. 

But now, oh now, oh woeful, woeful now! 
All I can do is sit and just remember; 
A ghost of life upon time's leafless bough 
Dreaming of June in cold and sleet November. 
Once I was fire; now I'm a dying ember; 
There brilliant flame; here but a flickering light 
Before the long and black nights of December. 
My youth, my strength, my passion and my right, 
Are gone, all gone, and now a dying member 
Earth soon will fling far down the pits of night 
The cold and icy corpse out of her living sight. 

All summer long I'm worn out with the heat; 
I've hardly strength to go the rounds of toil; 
I scarce can stand ten hours upon my feet 
To do the work that hath and doth despoil. 
The wine of life, the precious, priceless oil 
Is all burned up. I'm fallen down! I can't 
Come back! I'm spent! I'm all in! The petty broil 
For just my bread is strife that I would scant. 
Each day I drag from the exhausting moil 
Too tired to think the old unbraiding rant, 
But sit beside the door and pant and pant and pant. 

The bright, autumnal season circles round 
That once did lift unto the summits high; 
Great pageantries in golden splendors gowned 
March over earth, the mountains, seas and sky. 
My heart leaps up. Visions upon me fly 
And mighty dreams invite the singer's song. 
I fain would rise to write and often try, 
But back I fall to the oblivious throng. 
I have not strength; the passions flame and die; 
Great poetries are only for the strong. 
A leaf, a wave, a cloud, I'm swept by time along. 

Winter, winter, thou overwhelming dread! 
Beholding thee I'm cold and dark and sere; 

56 



An influence from the kingdom of the dead 
Surrounds me like a poisoned atmosphere. 
The last strength of this bowed and broken peer 
Beholding thee doth almost stand aghast. 
I tremble at thy coming swift and near, 
For life's assassins are round thy presence massed. 
I'm marked for death. I'm struck. I'm on the bier. 
Oh Life! Perhaps this winter is thy last; 
Ere spring revives the flowers thou shalt away have passed. 

There's nothing now before me but the "If," 
"The great perhaps," the vast interrogation, 
The pause, emphasis and silence on the cliff 
Of being as the spirit's contemplation 
Stands up to scan this infinite creation. 
The earth and man and all that live and die, 
The splendors of night's flaming congregation, 
The golden sun and solar passion high, 
Eternity and blank annihilation 
Now write upon the dark'ning western sky 
A vast interrogation of "what?" and "where?" and "why?" 

July, 1911. 



SPRING. 

Oh happy, happy, happy Spring! 

Oh child of light and love! 
Thou art a fairy angels bring 

Down from the worlds above 
Thou art a life supremely fair 

As time did ever bring; 
No wonder song is on the air 

And sunshine on the wing. 
The earth looks up and heav'n looks down, 

Both crying: "Mine, Oh Mine!" 
And spirits green and golden gown 

Doth envy them and pine. 
All lovers dream just such a dream 

Will crown their love's delight. 
On me the poet's visions gleam 

When thou art in my sight. 

Thou art the very soul of life, 

In these she lives and leaps; 
Thy fountains are with fulness rife, 

The crimson current sweeps. 
Thy very form doth burn and glow; 

I almost see the stream 
Beneath the mortal tissues flow 

With overflowing teem. 

57 



From head to foot thou seemest to he 

A wild impassioned dance; 
The spirit seems from body free 

And rides it in a trance. 
Such fountain floods and crimson tides 

Contagion wide doth fling; 
Thy kindred forms of life and light 

Swift into being spring. 

Come, let us walk, My Little Miss! 

I've shorn away my age. 
A better world I've found in this, 

Thou dost my heart engage. 
Here, here among the buds and flowers, 

Where sing the birds divine, 
Where dewy sunshine fills the bowers 

And perfumes are like wine. 
See how the morning does invite! 

The heavens are serene; 
The grass is green; the sun is bright; 

The air is fresh and keen. 
I'm young again, swift, wild and free; 

Come, let us gently walk! 
I'll weave a royal crown for thee 

As we together talk. 

Thy countenance of happiness — 

Oh who could ever dream 
Right through the vest of mortal dress 

Such beauty could outstream? 
I've seen some children fair I vow 

Where poets wander far 
But fairest of the fair art thou, 

The nursling of a star. 
No shadow of the world of time, 

No wrinkle of its age, 
No spot or blemish of its crime, 

Pain, sorrow, greed or rage 
Is on thv face, but such a face, 

Such life of life intense, 
Such purity and might and grace 

As smites our mortal sense! 

Your eyes are blue as yonder sky 

And deeper than its deep; 
Great worlds of promise on them lie 

And hopes around them leap. 
How like the new awakened eyes 

Of new created life, 
When pure and powerful passions rise 

58 



From fountains overrife! 
I never saw such shining hair, 

Such silken, flossy curls, 
Though in enchanted islands fair 

I've seen wee fairy girls. 
These wind-combed locks, Oh how they seem 

Like liquid flowing gold, 
Like sunbeams flowing in a stream, 

Like sunlight soft and old. 

Oh such a smile! Oh such a smile! 

It rests upon my heart 
As when dark storms by magic wile 

The sun tears wide apart. 
Thou art the first of womankind 

Whose smile of life divine 
The soul within the soul did find ! 

And fed me like a wine. 
If I had jewels, lands and gold 

I'd heap them in a pile 
And barter them with joy untold 

For just that happy smile. 
Hark! If you had just a few more years 

And I the dream once seen, 
I'd be the king of all earth's peers 

To crown thee as my Queen. 

Your voice is sweet and more divine 

Than yonder singing bird, 
Though now they sing with fire and wine 

As man has never heard. 
Your music like an echo clear 

Sounds o'er me and around. 
The dreams and visions that appear 

Are drunken with the sound. 
And drunken with the atmospheres 

That round thy presence play, 
There comes from sky and hills and meres 

Bright troops of fairy fay, 
They circle here and dance and sing; 

Oh give the spirit sway! 
A wild caprice is on the wing 

And life swept clean away. 

But stay, just stay! These violets sweet, 

Whose whispers you can guess, 
I'll pin them on your bosom neat 

So each will other dress. 
Here, hold your hand! This bunch of flowers 

A royal bride would grace. 

59 



My! All the beauty of the bowers 

Would pale before your face. 
Now let me place these roses bright 

Here in your golden hair. 
If thou art not a pure delight, 

There's none in life, I swear. 
This flaming rainbow ribbon band 

Around thee now I'll tie. 
You are a dream for artist's hand 

Or I've no poet's eye. 

Now, now, My Dear! Why is your face 

So sad with sudden clouds? 
Why did that golden smile give place 

And shadows come in crowds? 
There, there, My Little Honey Dear, 

Dry up, dry up your tears! 
I never dreamed that you had fear 

Or sorrow like my years. 
You're just a "Little Woman True!" 

So do not sigh or weep! 
These clouds will pass away from view 

And sunshine on you leap. 
There! I told you so. Clouds pass away. 

The sun has sudden smiled; 
Now down he looks; I hear him say: 

"This is my sweetest child." 
Then I look up to see him smile 

On thee with love divine, 
And say to him without a guile: 

"I wish that she were mine." 

The earth below is green for thee; 

The skies above are blue; 
The birds and flowers, tree, field and sea 

Around thee circle true. 
Old nature, mother of all life, 

The sun that all doth sire, 
Are nursing thee and feeding rife 

The passions full of fire. 
All lovers true of youth and maid 

Have smiled and smiled on thee 
And dreamed and dreamed and wished and prayed 

One such to them might be. 
Keen poets with the eye divine 

Have scanned all heaven and earth 
Then turned and with the frenzy fine 

Have found in thee their mirth. 

60 



Dli joy of life! Oh joy of life! 

Thou art a fount of bliss. 
I'll sing thy. praise through mortal days 

If thou will grant a kiss. 
Yes, I must have a kiss, My Dear. 

One both that takes and gives; 
Through only such in this dark sphere 

The lover loves and lives. 
There, there, My Own! Within my breast, 

Sunbeam in winter's heart, 
I feel thee thus my spirit bless 

And life immortal part. 
Oh child divine! Dear child divine! 

Thy kiss has thawed my years. 
Oh let me weep! I cannot keep 

The fountain of my tears. 

Go on your way! Go on your way, 

Oh happy, happy Spring! 
A bursting, bubbling, blossoming fay 

Almost upon the wing! 
So fresh and sweet, so clear and bright, 

Smiling and undefiled, 
So glad and glowing, pure and white 

And singing as if wild! 
A something melts and flows in me; 

My heart leaps with a. bound; 
My perished dreams arise in thee, 

My lost again is found. 
'Tis joy supreme as thus we meet, 

But joy to grief gives way. 
I gaze far down eanh's shadowed street 

And as you go I pray. 



THE ROSE. 

A maiden fair as morning birth 

And pure as morning snows, 
In gratitude for truth I taught 

Placed in my hand a rose. 
When she gave me her simple gift 

A tear her eye did wet; 
The soul that blossomed in her face 

I never can forget. 
For she was not like other maids, 

But deep and glad and true; 
God's purity still shed on her 

Its sweet divinest dew. 



61 



This rose which she had given me 

I bore it to my room; 
Its love and light that lonely place 

Did clear of every gloom. 
Its beauty was a soul that sent 

Enchantment through the air, 
Which by the strength of its pure life 

Afar did banish care. 
With such a sight before mine eyes 

And such an air to drink, 
I only could give up myself 

With joy and love to think. 

This rose was robed in purest white, 

Just tinging into cream; 
And silvered with the early dew 

Sprinkled from morning stream. 
The Queen of beauty came to her 

From paradise above 
And brought a garment for her child, 

Rich folds of light and love. 
Such flow of dress the chosen maid 

Has wished for in her dream 
But never such for happy bride 

The golden sun did stream. 

The soul of this sweet rose breathed forth 

A most delicious breath; 
So calm, so sweet, so rich, so pure, 

It o'ercame envious death; 
It spread itself around the room 

And on my dear loved books, 
The souls of poets traveling on 

Turned round with wondering looks. 
That breath was far too strong for me 

As warmth is for the snow; 
I felt it pierce through all my frame 

And to my dead heart go. 

Because in her pure world of love 

There is no thought of sin 
She bared her bosom to the air 

To fan the love within. 
Her bodice folds were gently turned 

And in her heaving breast 
The soul of beauty was laid bare 

Most modest and most blest. 
No blush upon her cheek did burn, 

Pure light and love divine; 
Through all her frame her crystal soul 

Upon my soul did shine. 

62 



That glowing breast a love revealed, 

A passion most intense; 
It kindled in my frozen heart 

A love too strong for sense. 
The gentle rose did not reject 

This growing love of mine, 
But whispered as love only can: 

"I seek that heart of thine." 
So I drew near this living soul 

And looked down in her breast; 
Such love and beauty and delight 
May never be expressed. 

Her gentle breath upon my cheek 

Was warm as summer rain; 
Her presence thus so near to me 

Was cleansing every stain. 
Her love had kindled mine so strong 

My fears passed in eclipse; 
My head bent down, hers gently rose 

To meet my offered lips. 
They meet, and from her soul there flowed 

A life ne'er known before; 
It swept me from this world of crime 

To some enchanted shore. 

A lover never kissed a maid 

And through his bosom thrilled, 
As from thy heart, Oh happy rose! 

My empty heart was filled. 
It seemed as on thy lips most pure 

Were sprinkled sacred dews, 
So thee alone of things divine 

The All in all could choose 
To send into my empty soul 

A throb of His own life 
And thus through thy sweet purity 
To calm my mortal strife. 

Then gently down I sat and dreamed 

The dreams of life divine. 
A stream of life and love flowed out 

And fed me like a wine. 
I mounted to a higher plane 

And walked into the sun: 
Beside me soon a spirit came 

And soon the two were one. 
We strayed along life's golden way 

Unto the evening's close 
And then I found the maiden dear 

Was that sweet morning rose. 

63 



So this is why I love the rose 

The queen of all the flowers. 
The love that in her hosom glows 

Is never matched by ours. 
That purity deep and divine, 

Beauty supremely blest, 
The dreams that round her rise and shine 

Rebukes us at our best. 
Yet something kindred to her heart 

With hunger oft devours 
For that within and that beyond 

The Virgin Queen of flowers. 



THE DANDELION. 

In the spring there rises up 

A spirit green and glad. 
Nature giveth him to sup 

The wines that cure the sad, 
The foaming, sparkling, brimming cup 

That sends him on as mad. 

On, on along the way 

Where buds and blossoms burst, 
Where vital perfumes play 

And flowers for beauty thirst, 
I go dancing, dancing and as gay 

As song with music versed. 

Then the Mother says to me: 

"There is the dandelion. 
Could you picture what I see, 

Put in form the grace divine, 
The passion feel and free 

With images that shine, 
A royal poet thou wouldst be, 

A joy to me and mine." 

Dandelion, Oh Dandelion 

That doth from earth awake! 

Warming airs are like a wine 
And doth thy trances break. 

The breath of spring is life divine 
That life doth drunken make. 



64 



It yet is early spring, 

The vines are scarcely green, 
The blossoms hardly wing, 

The gardens yet are lean, 
But if the sun his life should run 

Then thou art sudden seen. 

Thou springest out of earth 

As by a magic feat; 
A golden, golden birth 

That Nature loves to greet; 
Both heaven and earth with drunken mirth 

Into thy bosom beat. 

Soon thou art everywhere 

In field and street and lawn, 
Drinking deep the vital air 

That fills the dewy dawn 
And op'ning bare the sun to snare 

And closing if withdrawn. 

A host of circles bright, 

More yellow than our gold, 
Op'ning in our very sight 

A soul that doth unfold 
Joy, pleasure and delight 

To natures young and old. 

Ten thousand seem to shine 

Wherever we may go. 
We forget, the earthly tine 

And when sight is leveled low 
A sheet of golden light divine 

Along the grass ye throw. 

Thy sire was sure the sun; 

Could such a golden round, 
Such spirits golden run, 

Such golden lances bound, 
Lnless in him they first begun 

Before they burst the ground? 

Thy mother is the earth; 

Thou art of her a part; 
Her springtime mother mirth 

Is flowing in thy heart; 
She more rejoices in thy birth 

Than in our mine and mart. 

65 



Thy sisters are the flowers 
That grace the tangled wild; 

Violets in their sheltered bowers, 
Rich pansies sun-beguiled, 

Bright buttercups on slender stalks 
And daffodillies mild. 

Thy playmates are the winds, 

The birds and honey-bee, 
The butterfly that finds 

Her drunken way to thee, 
Bright buzzing flies and winged kinds 

Of creatures young and free. 

Oh Spring, divinest Spring! 

Life panteth with desire, 
The fountains thou dost fling 

Are mounting high and higher 
And dreaming as upon the wing 

Where fed with purest fire. 

Dandelion, Oh Dandelion, 

Her life within thee streams! 

Earth is drunken with a wine, 
Her passion glowing gleams; 

How could around ye fail to shine 
The images of dreams? 

Old Nature in her sport 

Went down the way of kings; 
All the tinsel gold of court, 

All the purple plush of things, 
'Twas just a royal wort 

And out her hands she flings, 
Ye, ye are jewels of the sort 

That to her breast she brings. 

The little martinet, 

Oh see him in parade! 
Your golden buttons set 

The man out of his grade; 
His fringy epaulette 

And heavy corded braid 
Are only seen when we forget 

How ye are first arrayed. 

The banker, how he smiled; 
The minter paused to see; 

66 



The jeweler was beguiled; 

The miser was in glee; 
They all dreamed and dreamed and dreamed 

Old nature was insane 
Or heaven on their visions streamed 

In such a golden rain. 

The peacocks of the town, 

They met a simple lass; 
She wore a flow'ry crown 

And robe spun out of grass 
Buttoned round and up and down 

She did them all surpass. 
The fashioned peacocks of renown 

With envy cried: "Alas!" 

Life's little fairy elves 

That are untouched by sin, 
With sly thoughts to themselves 

Hold ye beneath the chin, 
If butter patties shine, then delves 

The yellow metal in. 

The elder children blest 

With happy fancies roam, 
Adorn the head and breast 

Like kings and queens at home; 
So pouring dust upon the lust 

Of every golden Nome. 

Your Strength and Beauty fair 
Went down thy bordered lane. 

Golden was the pavement there 
Before them and in train. 

They were a royal, royal pair 
With riches and domain. 

Oh common wayside weed! 

Oh birth that many scorn! 
The Mother and her breed. 

See magic in ye born 
And from thy heart doth something start 

That giveth grace to morn. 

Down, down into thy heart 

Soul sinketh out of time; 
Lost, lost unto the mart 

And found in life sublime 
That from the center soul doth start 

Forever to its prime. 

67 



Down, down out of the world 
From loss and strife and stain, 

Out of the madness hurled 
By selfishness insane, 

Into the dreams divine and pearled 
That Love builds for her reign. 

Down, down out of the world 
And give myself to dreams; 

The thinker free can think 
Life other than it seems 

And for a moment drink divine 
The vision pure that streams. 

Down, down into thy life! 

Down, down into thy soul! 
Thy spirits rich and rife 

Doth through and through me roll 
And for an hour I tread the course 

To being's starry goal. 

But Oh how soon, how soon 

Decay doth on ye grow! 
Your golden robes of noon 

Are changed to white as snow 
And lighter than a gauze festoon 

And winged hence ye go. 

Then just a puff of wind, 

Without a fear or sigh, 
The earth ye leave behind 

And sail the azure sky, 
Unto your course and end resigned, 

Unlike to us who die. 

Sail, sail the azure deep! 

Wing, wing ye through the sky! 
On, onward ever sweep! 

High, higher still on high! 
Your stainless courses onward keep, 

Unlike to us who die. 



AMONG THE STARS. 

Oh lofty and sublimest dome of night! 
Emblazonery with images divine! 
Eternal dreams upon the stainless height 
That wake and feed and fill our mortal pine! 
How oft, how oft we lift our stretching eyne 
Unto the deeps whence down into us stream 

68 



The floods of life like crimson cosmic wine! 
How oft we soar with vigor most supreme 
Straight up to thee and large as thy design! 
Led by thy power, kindled by sight and dream 
We think the mighty thoughts of this vast starry scheme. 

What undreamed revelations here! What surprise 
Of distances and reaches into space! 
What stretching out of heart and mind and eyes 
To the fixed stars as if our strength could trace 
Infinity! Boundless amplitudes embrace 
Us round in unimagined measures, which scorn 
Time's mathematic and astronomic race 
Of giants. At ninety million miles is born 
The sun; at two hundred thousand times the base 
The nearest star; at thirty thousand unshorn 
Years of lightning motion the faintest stars forlorn. 

Oh unconquerable and inconceivable 
Reaches of the heavens! The powers of thought 
Are stunned, staggered, stimulated and full 
Of drunken inspiration when first are taught 
These distances so infinitely fraught 
Beyond all human nature. The awful deep 
And length and breadth and height, is there aught 
In the wide universe whose pinions sweep 
The trackless regions which yonder have been wrought? 
See earth-born genius forth impassioned leap! 
See yonder on the moon that soon exhausted heap! 

What volumes and inconceivable masses 
Are floating in yon sky? This granite frame 
With mountains, forests, seas, land and all, glasses 
The worlds as a soap bubble in a game. 
Of childhood images the thing we name 
The earth. Uranus, icy Neptune, 
Ringed Saturn and Jupiter of belted fame, 
These magnitudes with whom ourselves commune, 
Are mighty globes whose shadows mere might shame 
Our bloated size. Dimensionless the king of noon 
Could hide the solar system in spots on his illume. 

This thirteen hundred thousand times the earth 
Is but a baby world to some of these 
First seen thousands of years aiter the birth 
Of light. Before the spectroscope there flees 
Swift flashes of such globes. Enormities 
Of size we know exist but cannot climb 
By any strength or dreams that fancy please; 
Millions of miled diameters, with prime 

69 



Circumferences broken by the seas, 
Mountains, land and storms and everything to rhyme 
The vast gigantic scales where nature works sublime. 

Omnipotence is but a word elsewhere, 
But here, here are the infinities of power — 
The vast almighty energies that dare 
From nothingness create this flaming bower 
Of dynamic, wonder-crowded suns. How our 
Little earth confounds our strength and shakes 
Us into fear by earthquakes that devour 
Our element-defying weakness! Who makes 
These stupendous lightning motors that drive the towe 
Of day and night? Omnipotence expiates 
In infinite infinities of suns and planet mates. 

A horse-power! A horse-power must be multiplied 
A billion times, and then be cast away 
For a solar unit which doth but hide 
The almightiness that round us has its sway. 
These centripetals and centrifugals stay 
The first archangel's visions and confound 
Man's speech, his dreams and figures of display. 
Nature's reservoiral energies abound 
Still unexhausted and fresh creations dismay 
The magnitudes that circle here around, 
In constellated march, forever more renowned. 

Equal or past the volume, power and space, 
Is the expansion of the sense of time. 
How contemptuous the periods of our race 
Unto the age that with the world doth rhyme! 
These astronomic ages, now sublime 
The mighty roll of these celestial spheres 
Whose million years upon each other climb 
As waves climb up the murmuring shores! The years 
Before the moon, the earth, the planets prime, 
As rending thunders strike upon the ears, 
Pause as with solemn awe and shadow us with fears. 

How old is the golden vestured king of noon? 
How vain the symbols in the answer told! 
Figures are as empty as a gauze festoon 
Which on the moon a summer breath has rolled. 
Twenty million years is estimate not bold, 
And even this some multiply a score; 
But this or that what spirit can it hold? 
Our sun is young; others have vastly more 
Of age upon them. Most solemnizing old 
These flickering stars upon night's purple floor! 
Almost to everlasting our spirits onward soar. 

70 



Thus we are lifted above life and time. 
A mighty spirit sweeps us o'er the earth, 
Over time's changes, over nature's prime, 
And past the hour of her sunlike glorious birth. 
Intensities of awe and noblest mirth 
Bear us on to the distant fire creations 
Of nebulosities of extended girth. 
Incarnate in the very condensations 
We slowly live up to the present worth, 
Through the times, process and differentiations 
That builds the universe up to its glorious stations. 

Thus bound along the mighty evolutions 
From heterogeneous elements most raw, 
We see the growth of nature's institutions, 
Matter, biologies, intelligence and awe. 
The reach and sweep of everlasting law 
Inspire and light imagination's eyes 
To see worlds born, and then sink in the maw 
Of what might seem annihilation. They rise 
Through geologic dynasties, though they draw 
Some of the past entail; but promise ever cries 
A still diviner course along the azure skies. 

Still onward we are bound by flight benign 
Though earthquake shocks of conflict round us ring, 
As the higher powers with victory divine 
Sloughs off the old that doth around it cling. 
The earth decays; a burnt out cinder the king 
Of noon dissolves to nought, and another mass 
With potentialities more rich doth spring 
Into its place. The constellations pass 
Like panoramic scenes and others fling 
A brighter splendor and another glory glass 
Of something more sublime as these the earth surpass. 

Changes to higher transformation is the line 
By which the universe doth upward wing. 
There must be ideals more splendid and divine 
Than those whose lift unto this height did bring. 
Ends of vast, vaster majesty must king 
The long ascension, for on each higher plane 
Bonic and celestial song doth fling 
Eclipsing visions on the heart and brain. 
What can exhaust the starry globes! This thing 
Of briefest earth? Shall not the ideals reign 
Nor the evolutions bring our dreams in all their train! 

It must be so. Man's infinite eternal deep 
Cries out against a blinded evolution, 

71 



And infinite, eternal life doth sweep 
When he believes even a dream solution 
To these vast globes in strife and rank pollution. 
In spite of sight great glorious visions leap 
Upon the heart and brain, and times of restitution 
In pageantry and high procession sweep 
Through all the years and crown each revolution. 
These spirits vast courses eternal keep, 
Hope, Life and Love and Truth great dreams before them hea>>. 

Lost, lost amid the future contemplations 
We find ourselves within the distant age, 
After vast change, within the new creation 
The prophet scarce dare tell unto his page. 
With a divine intensity of rage 
We're lifted up and borne by dream along 
The glorious evolution that assuage 
The passions slain, yet fed by greed and wrong. 
The reign of science, of poet, priest and sage, 
The incarnation of spirits pure and strong 
Around us rise sublime crowned with eternal song. 

The contemplation high doth wear the strength 
Of frail humanity that must descend 

From all the stars. The height and breadth and length 
Of those rich dreams into the mortal lend 
The passions great that being doth distend 
And glorify with splendors like the morn. 
Failing and worn though high and far the end 
We calm descend but feel we are upborn 
To other thoughts that fit the present trend. 
Upon the earth, beneath the bright adorn 
Thy powers and works and dreams no living soul can scorn. 

The dumb, unconscious beast beholds thee not 
And multitudes of more unconscious men 
Storm o'er the earth with blindest fevers hot 
And through their course of three -score years and ten 
Not once, so much as once lift up the ken 
To view thy flaming glories. But if the sight 
Falls on the heart the universe again 
Brings forth the heir. A new cosmopolite 
Emerges frcm the beasts amid the fen; 
Emerges with his face unto the height, 
Receives and back reflects the distant splendors bright. 

There is no mechanician in the world 
But looks with vast astonishment on high. 
The huge machine by huger forces whirled 
Intoxicates the true machinist's eye. 



The revolutions along the azure sky 
Of circles and ellipses, the rotation 
Directed and reverse of masses as they fly 
Undeviating orbits, the inclination 
Of the axes to the plane and the perfect ply 
Of every cog throughout the wide creation 
Is a mechanic's joy and lasting contemplation. 

Physical scientists and philosophers 
Of mind, men of the noblest sweep and height 
Of thought, the intelligence that delivers 
The world from plane to plane, with rich delight, 
Most solemn awe, and inspirations white, 
Oft contemplate this galaxy of splendors, 
These processional majesties, these bright 
Prodigalities of power and sunlike spenders 
Of infinite generosity. The height 
Of passion this vision to earth tenders 
Gives victory over time and space asunder renders. 

Noblest of all, the community of saints 
Have loved thee, Night, and thy exalted bowers, 
So uncontaminated by the taints 
Of life and time and all that man devours. 
The infinite and high eternal Powers 
Of purity with thee hold habitation 
And from thy starry elevations great showers 
Drench the spirit, till we become incarnations 
Of noblest character. Thy solemn hours 
Are sacred to his Spirit's ministrations, 
.aptisms in his life and moral exaltations. 

Oh what a spacious, all-sustaining base 
Is this vast culminating universe 
For a rich and multitudinous race 
Of intellect and morals! Oh who could nurse 
The thought that moral beings never verse 
The worlds out of impeachment to intelligence 
Vast, vast beyond our own! Is this disburse 
Of mighty worlds a spectacular pretense 
And empty vanity? On this atom what unpurse 
Of vastest elements? More noble and intense 
Must be and rule the spheres of such magnificence. 

There must be others ! Hierachal reigns 
Of love and purity, of triumphant power 
And beauty must exist in those domains 
Of starry splendor. The immortal tower 
Yonder in their strength and golden dower; 
The ripe perfections within the prophet's sense 

73 



Flower from within and round them. No sins devour 
Nor light upon them any of the dense 
And blind idolatries of earth. There shower 
Life's shining gifts and virtues most immense 
And all the generations go singing, soaring hence. 

This starry scheme doth shame all architectural 
G'enius and dwindles this planet of the sun 
To a mere vestibule for intellectual 
Being. The architectonic power doth run 
This temple-like construction as to stun 
All heaven's visions. A vast sublimity 
Arches our entrance to creation 
And ushers us to a high infinity 
Of solar systems. The universe has won, 
Adopts us, and within a new divinity 
Awakes and finds and claims, life, kindred and affinity. 

Oh Night, as long as I shall circle here 
Lead, lead me out and lift me to thy height! 
Nurse, nurse my soul from this repressive sphere 
Unto thy greatness, majesty and might! 
Feed to my eyes the constellations bright, 
To heart, the life of the vast universe, 
To mind, the splendored sunlike visions white 
Of great immortals riding on the curse, 
And to the future feed the glorious sight 
Of recreating globes that rich unpurse 
The dreams beyond all dreams, the verse beyond all verse. 



NATURE'S SONGS. 

I love to hear old nature sing; 

There's music in her heart. 
An ocean feeding crystal spring 

Doth in her bosom start. 
The oldest, richest melody, 

From her it ever flows; 
From sky and forest, mount and sea 

Around the world it blows. 

With mighty tramp the thunders march 

Along the cloudy height, 
As Liberty upon the arch 

Were marching in her might. 
What majesty and solemn song! 

What trembling awful sound! 
Like armies cannonading strong 

74 



When thunders march around. 

The loud reverberations sate 

And chain the raptured ear; 
The dying of the battle great 

Is muffled music dear. 
Prom cloud to cloud it dies away 

As dies away a song; 
It never seems to die, but stays 

In echoes ling'ring long. 

The wind in mountain or in trees, 

Oh, who hath ever heard 
These solemn sweeping melodies 

And not with passion stirred? 
The elemental breath of earth 

When driven with a sweep 
Doth bring in man another birth 

Whose raptures forward leap. 

The forest to the northern blast 

Doth answer with a sound 
That sweeps man's mighty passions fast 

In her resistless round. 
Autumnal breath! Spirit of life! 

Blow, blow, forever blow! 
When sweeping with the glorious strife 

The spirit white doth glow! 

What mighty sound around the shore 

When earth the tempest rocks? 
The awful ocean's angry roar 

The mountain bases shocks. 
White foaming waves! Deep yawning caves! 

High heaven climbing sound! 
The fearless ear delights to hear 

Your music poured around. 

An even when the tempests sleep 

A loud triumphant strain 
Victorious marches o'er the deep 

Like spirits of domain. 
Thousands of miles with mighty voice 

The victors singing go. 
The paean doth the earth rejoice; 

Blow, blow ye trumpets, blow! 

And every gentle breath that blows 

O'er spring or summer time, 
Shakes out on earth or brings to birth 

Some snatches of sweet chime. 

• 75 



Who has not felt the zephyr rise 
And from the fanning strain 

Received a something that revives 
Song in the heart and brain? 

Often the silver singing streams 

Gush fountain-like from earth, 
And like a child with happy dreams 

Sings with a growing mirth. 
Ten thousand placid crystal lakes 

Wash up the silver beach, 
And shame the schools and all the rules 

Of rich poetic speech. 

The fountains and the waterfalls 

From rock to rock they fling 
The echoes and the fairy calls 

Each to the other sing. 
The rain, the rain, the slanted rain 

Comes patt'ring all around; 
The sad and sweet pathetic strain 

The heart has often found. 

The morning never yet did rise 

Without a burst of praise. 
The forest green, the azure skies 

Are lyrical with lays. 
Ten thousand plumaged singers sweet 

That live upon the wing 
Doth hail the morn with passion heat 

And all in rapture sing. 

A deep and spirit-nursing hum 

Fills every summer vale; 
The hives, the insects and all come 

And murmur as they sail. 
The song of low ephemeral life 

Is soft and rich and clear; 
And like a balm on life and strife 

To all that hark and hear. 

And in the pauses of the strain, 

The flowers, cloud and sky 
And Beauty with her rainbow train 

Swift flashes on the eye. 
Then golden, crimson, purple sprites, 

Like maidens pure and fair, 
Like me, seem listening with delights 

To nature's ancient air. 

Oh Nature strong! Oh Soul of song! 
Thy music o'er me fling! 

76 



Pd barter all the poet's art 

But just to hear thee sing. 
There's pleasure in thy presence sweet 

And hopes around thee throng; 
There's strength where thou and man doth meet 

And virtue is thy song. 



METEORS AND STARS. 

A blazing rocket mounting to the air, 
Leaves in its wake a line of crimson light; 
Aloft it bursts, and colored streams most fair 
Play as a fountain 'gainst the dome of night. 
This sudden, brilliant and fantastic sight 
Draws every eye, and while its bosom burns 
Pales the eternal stars; then from its height 
In that same gaze to earth it quick returns, 
Plunging to sightless sink where none the spot discerns. 

As men are born, so each dynamic life 
Is winged to mount this firmament of fire; 
In that majestic peace which mocks our strife 
Find the bright place for which high hearts aspiro. 
In our quick, mortal, blind and mad desire 
For yonder vacant thrones, wings of feeble flame 
Are stricken dumb by storms of jealous ire; 
And millions fall to darkness whence they came, 
To watch with envious eyes the few swift souls of fame. 

These souls mount up, and as warm dizzy flights 
Kindle bright dreams within the meteor's trance, 
So their being burns anew. Golden delights 
Around them shine and their celestial dance, 
Almighty power and solar lightning glance 
For one short hour dims e'en the light of noon; 
Then weakness does each quick, glad, silver lance 
Of spirit light eclipse, while star and moon 
Watch their descending flight to some foul dark lagoon. 

For souls burning from self may burn most bright; 
Spread heaven's light, and herald earth's late morn; 
But selfishness, time's deadly, coldest blight, 
The vital spark from seraph souls has torn; 
For glowing heart and flaming mind has borne 
The light that clove their dark and natal gloom, 
And hissing in sin's salty sea of scorn 
Plunged them down, and gave the vacant room 
To souls of purer fire bursting from death's last tomb. 

77 



Those spirits scorched by life's quick fiery scorn 
Till selfishness is cindered, cold and dead, 
With an immortal life anew are born 
And from the heart of primal fire are fed. 
Fire soft, pure, sweet, swift and strong as ever sped 
The electric currents through archangel's wings 
Is theirs; and since to life and love is wed 
The high ideal, their inmost being springs 
From tombs of death to life and thrones that wait their kings. 

Through mortal night with lightning woven storms, 
Through thunder crash and elemental wrath, 
Through swarming hosts of demoniac forms 
Whose envious hate resists their destined path 
Skyward, love's pure resistless heart which hath 
A robe of strength and motion round her flung, 
Burns her bright way and leaves no aftermath 
Through their deep belt of foes; and all that clung 
Around their new-born souls before their flight are stung. 

Then as a globe and comet train of fire, 
In most majestic curves toward heaven's height 
Sweeps her bright way, and brighter as she higher 
Mounts the path through constellated night, 
So souls of love, with splendor, joy and might 
Pinion aloft to life's awaiting skies; 
While mid our flames of flickering, lurid light, 
A million hearts with their sad filmy eyes, 
Behold their age's sight with hate or glad surprise. 

From golden, poised and never wearied wings, 
Upon that mass of helpless death below 
The Spirit's best and purest gift she flings: 
The light of love upon their selfish woe; 
The love of light to feed their hearts' faint glow; 
On their dark minds and shadowed countenance 
A living dream which beckons them to go 
Toward that pure Soul whose love and gladness dance 
In these soft saving beams upon their mortal glance. 

Then far above on heaven's destined thrones, 
Firm set within the firmament which time 
Pavilions round this darkness, death and groans, 
They shine forever bright. From towers sublime 
They scatter light which neither curse nor crime 
Can long eclipse, nor if they would, not see. 
Though age on age like waves each other climb, 
And selfishness her dark clouds still set free, 
High throned the lights of love shine to eternity. 

18 



A MORNING SONG FOR SENSE. 

Oh ye sons of force! Oh ye sons of force! 
That the storms defy and the elements' course, 
That are formed by the lightning, plain and rock 
For the lists of power and the earthquake shock, 

How can ye arise and haste on your way 
Like the blinded beasts that in darkness prey! 
How dare ye to toil ere ye lift your eyes 
To the majesties of the morning skies! 

Oh pause on the tramp of your early march 

And behold the gates and the eastern arch! 

Oh pause on the tramp that doth shake the earth 

And look where the day and its strength have birth! 

On the Campus pause, on the crested hill, 
At the vista wide which the morn doth fill, 
By the mine or mart, plain or dew-clad mount, 
By the billowy beach or the singing fount, 

Just a moment pause, and a moment's sight 
Of that golden sun and those splendors bright 
Shall become a dream and a vision high 
On the hours of toil as they slowly fly. 

Take a deep, a deeper, diviner breath 
For this vital air is the bane of death 
And the crimson pulse of the morning hour 
Will thy heart engird for the day's devour. 

Oh lift thy brow to the silent awes 
Of the upper spheres and the solemn laws! 
For the sight divin> with its passions tense 
Will thy spirit lift from the bonds of sense. 

Oh drink to the full of the royal sight! 

Let these golden splendors, effulgent bright 

And the tides of life that forever stream 

Fill the heart and brain that with hungers teem! 

When the key is turned in the factory gates 
And thy free soul bound with their heavy weights, 
Then a dream of life and supremely bright 
Shall burst like the blaze of this golden light. 

The dawn of the day it was made for thee 

It was made to lift and to make thee free. 

If thou wilt pause at the morning dawn 

Thou wilt find thou'rt more than a mass of brawn. 

79 



Oh ye sons of force! Oh ye sons of force! 
Here renew your strength for your mortal course! 
If ye will pause at the morning portal 
Ye will find yourselves and the Soul immortal. 



THE MOCKING BIRD. 

Mocking Bird, Oh Mocking Bird! 

The mention of thy name 
Deep desire within has stirred 
And from the north I came 
To hear the magic song that gives thy spirit fame. 

I harken now for thee; 

Sing, sing to me a strain! 
Thy music full unfree 

Into my heart and brain! 
I'm kindred unto thee and list'ning as in pain. 

Hark! Hark! Is that the measure 

Now bursting on my ear 
Too high for sense of pleasure, 
Too deep for doubt or fear, 
Quick'ning soul that reaches out with hunger vast to hear. 

Forth leaps the strain of life; 

Out shoots the stream of fire; 
It pierces like a knife; 

It quickens like inspire; 
Waking, waking, waking soul with infinite desire. 

I cannot think or dream, 

I can only hark and hear. 
All powers that in me stream 

Are straining at my ear; 
To lose a single note is growing pain and fear. 

On flows the thrilling sound; 

On sweep the flood of song; 
Life riseth with a bound 

Of passion swelling strong, 
Enchanted, chained and held though sweeping swift along. 

New fountains in me burst; 

Life mounteth up the steep; , 
Soul has drunk away her thirst 
And can walk and run and leap; 
Something strange, divine, and swift doth through her 

being sweep. 

80 



Oh Music, the divinest 

Of all the muses fine! 
Oh Spirit that enshrinest 

The songs for which we pine, 
Ever still the Queen of life, supremest and benign! 

Out, out thou now art flinging 

The fulness of thy heart, 
To earth and heaven singing 

The lyrics of an art 
That feedest full the passion of a life's immortal part! 

Far, far thou now art throwing 

A thousand notes of fire! 
As the soul the song is glowing, 

Thou art lost in thy inspire, 
Crimson life is sweeping through thy heart so like a lyre. 

Forth, forth thou now are pouring 

The spirit-quick'ning strains! 
All drinketh and go soaring 
Forgetful of their pains, 
After every vital draught more thirsty still remains. 

'Tis a glowing, glowing passion, 
Pure, flaming, swift and bright. 

The music take the fashion 
Of the spirit burning white, 
Every note intense and iound and piercing with delight. 

'Tis a wild ecstatic measure, 

A swift delirious strain, 
The youngest youngest pleasure 

With a drunken heart and brain, 
That never knew a sorrow and never dreamed a pain. 

'Tis a lyric lyric rapture 
Of a lyric spirit glad, 
With the lyrics that doth capture 
The soul of sorrow sad, 
Restoring it the happiness no dreams have ever had. 

Here Nature sits and nurses 

Her children gathered round. 
She feedeth them the verses 
That in her bosom bound, 
And to her youngest singing soul has taught the glorious soun 

Here beauties, dreams and visions 
Are crowding hill and dale; 

81 



Loud laughing with derisions 
Or intense and still and pale; 
Spirit lifted up on high and swept on like a gale. 

Here song and joy and story- 
Are list'ning as in trance; 

Tnere is a flash of glory, 
Of splendor and romance 
Every time the wild caprice sweeps the ecstatic dance. 

Here poets of all orders 

Come running from afar. 
Thy song has crossed the borders 

And swings the gates ajar, 
The past and future singers around thy presence are. 

They forward lean and listen 

All straining and intense. 
Some eyes with sorrows glisten, 

Some swell with power immense 
Some white and glowing glow and all are free from sense. 

Between the breathing pauses 
Each smothers down his lyre, 

Eut the pulsing pulsing causes 
A bursting out of fire; 
One by one they sing to thee a snatch of their desire. 

"I have heard the lyric chorus 

Of the early dewy morn 
When before and round and o'er us 

As the sun again was born, 
Every winged singing soul with gladness new was torn. 

As I listened to that singing 

Up I mounted to the height; 
There were dreams before me winging 
That did capture my delight, 
Till forgotten was the song in the images so bright. 

But the song that now is sweeping- 
Flings enchantment on the ear; 

With the high crescendoes leaping 
I am climbing up the sphere, 
But abounding with the passion that is binding me to hear. 

As I circle round the pleasures 
Of the forest, sea and sky, 

I will never hear such measures 
As this wild ecstatic cry; 
But the echoes, Oh the echoes, they will never never die." 

82 



"I have heard the strings of life 

Arid the fingers full of fire; 
Though entangled in the strife 

I did answer the inspire, 
Leaping with a life divine and panting with desire. 

But this passion more intense, 

More intense and pule and white, 
Delivers from all sense 
And spirit doth bedight 
In singing singing robes that bear me with delight, 

Where priests and prophets sing 

Their visions, dreams and lays, 
And flaming echoes fling 
Down the enchanted ways 
Where Life and Love and Truth the scepter swings and swa 

As I go upon my way 

I will listen to the lyre, 
But my hand will often stay 

Its throbbing strings of fire, 
Dreaming of this soul of song that captures my desire." 

"I have felt the hungry tooth 
Of the dragon of remorse 
Bite, bite unbitten youth 
With the fury of its force, 
Driving blinded and insane the mortal on its course. 

The spirit of the morn 

In rainbow beauty dressed 
Was torn as clouds are torn 

Before the storm's unrest, 
Pitching down the ruined night from heaven's highest crest. 

Life now has clean forgot 

The poison of the pain; 
The spirit so besot 

Is rising without stain, 
Binding tight the glorious song upon its heart and brain. 

As I go upon my course 

I will sing as sorrow sings. 
As sorrow is the source 

Of song that sweetest rings 
I will mingle it with this in the fountain head of springs." 

"I have heard the systems swinging, 
Sing the echoes of the spheres. 

83 



I have heard the ages winging, 
Ring the choruses of years, 
And these broken-hearted mortals in the tragedy of tears. 

But the high eonic measures 

Of the universal score 
Are forgotten in the pleasures 

Of the strains that on me pour, 
In the panting panting rapture of this lyric lyric lore. 

Sublime in their sublimity 

They go upon their way. 
Divine in thy divinity 
The raptures of thy lay 
Createth new the world of life and sweep them down the day. 

When I sweep along the ages, 
When I soar above the spheres, 

When the battle fiercest rages, 
There will ring within my ears 
This passioned, passioned measure that is laughing at all fears," 

"I have heard the poet's lark 

Soar singing to the sun; 
All the world doth pause and hark 
As the stream adown doth run, 
Lost, lost and found in dreams when it is but begun. 

The beauty, bird and strain 
Doth lift Life out of earth. 
It pierces heart and brain 

Till dreams come unto birth, 
Singing, singing, singing songs delirious in mirth. 

Now far across the sea 

I bend a listening ear; 
And now I turn to thee 

Deep thrilling as I hear, 
Yielding thine the palm of song, perhaps because so near. 

Those poets and their lark, 

These and their mocking birds, 

To each other bend and hark, 
By each other vast are stirred, 
More impassioned passioned praise was never never heard." 

"Unto the golden spheres 

From whence we came we turn. 
Not one of our compeers 

84 



Thy song would dare unlearn, 
For through the future's lyre thy soul and song shall burn. 

Mocking Bird, Oh Mocking Bird! 

Oh Music wild and free! 
Though images and word 

Are pleasures unto me, 
Vaster, vaster is the joy of listening unto thee. 



WHEN SHALL MY SOUL-SUMMER COME? 

The winter storms away have passed; 

The cold and ice and snow, 
The frosty cloud, the whirlwind blast, 

Night, hunger, fear and foe! 
Away! Away! As far they bound 
As sorrow does when joy is crowned. 

The sky again is soft and bright, 

These ether oceans blue; 
The air is cleansed with liquid light 

And vital to renew. 
The golden, chemic, vital sun 
A life in death has now begun. 

All things now bear and give their gain, 

South winds an odor sweet, 
The soft clouds come with warming rain, 

Light with expanding heat; 
The morning feeds earth with her beams 
And evening nurses with her dreams. 

Each plumaged bird her rapture sings, 
Streams murmur o'er the stones, 

The forest's bannered branches fling 
Her sweeping undertones; 

Measures from mountains, plain and sea 

Build up a mighty hymn to me. 

A softest green now carpets earth, 

The dome a deep of blue; 
Rich rainbow hearts open to birth 

In contrasts sweet and new; 
Golden and red, purple and white. 
And mingled colors woven bright. 

With bursting life all things abound, 

With hopes and joys divine; 
The mighty world-soul circles round 

85 



Life, fire and joy and wine. 
Ten thousand times her soul did wake 
But never from her heart did break 
The life that thrills and all things shake. 

The veil is drawn from off her heart; 

I see life's ebb and flow; 
I hear the sound her pulsings start, 

Oh what a fervid glow! 
Now nature's form is full of life 
Expanding with all passions rife. 

But J am clouded o'er with fears, 

Nor sun nor soul I hail; 
Desire nor hope nor grief nor tears 

Against the fates avail. 
I'm dark and sick, bleeding and numb; 
Oh when shall my soul-summer come? 

Oh when shall my soul-summer come? 

Oh shall it come at last? 
I've hoped and hoped but life is dumb; 

My fears oft stand aghast, 
Oft stand aghast, lest I stay numb 
And my soul-summer never come. 



TO ASTRONOMY. 

Oh Astronomy! Astronomy! 
Thou art the Queen of sciences. The universe 
Is thy boundless empire, and eternity 
Thy throne of majesty where thou dost unpurse 
An infinity of fulness and disburse 
Thy blessings unto the wide creation. 
The worlds thou liftest from chaotic curse 
And round thy everlasting station 
Spiritlike they congregate. They glorious verse 
Thy presence, splendor and exaltation 
Which round the heavens casts sublimest fascination. 

Thou art the mother of intellectual 
Being. Thou bringest forth the passioned hour 
Of intensities in man and time's usurping spell 
Destroyest in his heart. Thou art the power 
Whose expansion recreates with vast endower 
These faculties, and communicates to soul 
The transcendental elements that tower 
On high. The mighty amplitudes that roll 

86 



Through thy uncircled spirit becomes our 

Temperamental quality, and to the whole 

Created universe thou dost our spirits pole. 

Oh mother of this heaven soaring mind! 
Oh mother of this godlike breasted heart! 
Oh parent of divine begotten kind 
Which thee and thine within our beings start! 
What creations to a shining chart 
Sublimer than the worlds! What intensities 
Of passion which thy spirits free impart! 
What expansion beyond the cumberous densities 
Of earth! and what idealisms dart 
Upon us changing time's propensities. 
As we are face to face with thee and thy immensities! 

Oh imperial passioned mother of the great! 
What mean these strange experiences of time? 
Why are we led to bound this incommensurate 
Creation? Why are we forced to the prime 
Battle of being and with elements sublime 
Contend until the mastery we gain? 
Why thus impelled these awful heights to climb? 
And inspired to understand the strain 
The systems round, forever on us chime? 
Why conflict, conquest, triumph and a plane 
Where these mechanics vast go circling in the brain? 

What means this most memorial sacrament 
To life's intelligence and the significance 
Of this baptism into the element- 
Al powers of being? What means this inductance 
To the vast estates that base the super-sense 
Abilities? and this domestication 
Of a child of time in the wide immens- 
ities of uncircumscribed creation? 
What means this capacity of immanence 
And transcendency o'er matter and mutation 
By the earth-born, mortal, and prisoner to his station? 

Does it not mean there is a living breath 
And being shaped upon the Infinite? 
Something unkindred to space and time and death, 
And in its element upon the summit 
Of creation, drinking in most passionate 
The splendors of intelligence and power 
And life and beauty that forever flit 
Across its bosom? Is not the glorious hour 
Out of the deep and from the heights of spirit? 
Does it not prophet-like announce our 
Certain immortality as fruit foretells the flower? 



Can this being of intensest consciousness? 
Of length and breadth and height and depth and sweep 
Beyond all limits that upon us press, 
Return again into its native deep 
Of nothingness? Can this heart and mind that keep 
The universe within its compass drink 
Annihilation? Will it not rather leap 
When it doth come to nature's awful brink, 
To freedom, power and glory on the steep 
Of heaven? How impossible to think 
Creation's crown of life in death can ever sink! 

Oh Nature, Night and Astronomic Soul! 
Oh infinite and most eternal power 
That through mankind and all creations roll 
The fulness that thy being doth endower! 
Is not this where ye bring the narrow hour 
Of our mortality and it baptize 
Into eternity that doth devour 
The bondage sense that on this mortal lies? 
Another consciousness comes up to tower 
Commandingly upon the azure skies 
And round the starry spans casts her imperial eyes. 

Oh Night! Oh Night! Oh most beloved Night! 
Mother and nurse of being's power divine! 
Oh cast thy spells of starry magic might 
Upon cur minds and still more make them thine! 
Under thy constellations, Oh pour the wine 
Of living thought upon this thirsty mortal 
And fellowship our low, unworthy line! 
Oh lead us through each starry flaming portal 
And lift us to the height of thy design! 
Oh clothe us with thy character so courtal 
&nd like thy splendors bright, Oh march us on immortal! 



DETROIT RIVER. 

Oh rivers famed in history 

With magic light and song, 
With wonder, grace and mystery 

Of ages buried long! 
Shine, shine in all your glory! 

Robe, robe you like a dream! 
Flow, flow and tell your story 

As round the world ye stream! 

Burst, burst up from your fountains 
Of gold and silver sands! 



88 



Dance, dance adown your mountains 
Like youth and maiden bands! 

Your hoary tales the choicest 
On time and tide, Oh fling! 

Far better songs unvoicest 
The river that I sing. 

Old Nature in her riches 

Of nations dreamed the health. 
She dug these noble ditches 

To flood them with her wealth. 
"Flow, flow ye inland oceans! 

Flow, fountains of the north! 
Ye floods with rushing motions, 

I bid you to come forth!" 

Then instantly a river, 

Deep, wide and pure and strong, 
Came rushing like a giver 

Of mighty life and song. 
A mile wide and glorious 

And blue as is the sea, 
Forever more victorious 

The flood came flowing free. 

Down, down it came down sweeping 

With life upon its breast; 
Swelling, surging, foaming, leaping, 

Bright, beautiful and blest. 
Above it shone the morning, 

Before it sang the wind 
And within it was the scorning 

Of life with passion blind. 

Right at the bank intended 

The dwelling of a queen 
The billows high ascended 

And foamed the flowering green. 
Then softer on for ages 

While waiting for the man 
She sang and ran her stages 

With nature and her clan. 

Then came the early builder 

And laid foundations fine; 
After the cunning guilder 

With skill and arts divine. 
Now, near a million mortals 

In life and health and glow 
Would dwell within these portals 

And have thee through them flow. 

89 



When winter in his rigor 

Rides down thy icy breast 
Thou feedest frame with vigor 

And spirit keenest zest. 
The northern virtue courses 

Around our crimson hearts; 
We are panting with the forces 

Tnat thy being free imparts. 

When spring again is turning, 

Down, down unto thee stray 
The masses with a yearning 

To see the ice away. 
The eyes are feast delighted; 

The nostrils sniff the air; 
With whiskey-sense bedighted 

We dance upon our care. 

All, all the summer golden 

The hosts that here abound 
Leave toil and bondage olden, 

Sail up and down and round. 
The heavy freighted steamers 

Low laden down with life, 
With music and bright streamers 

Sail out of mortal strife. 

Down, down the autumn splendor 

Thou ridest like a dream; 
Detroit fair doth tender 

Her visions down the stream. 
Was ever such a story, 

Such sense and sound and sight 
As the river and her glory 

That rides the autumn bright! 

The traffic of the traders 

Is ever up and down 
Iron, coal and copper freighters 

Are clothed with thy renown. 
Gay Pleasure's pigmy-shallops 

Are rocking on thy might 
And the water auto gallops 

With a frenzy of delight. 

There's a majesty in flowing, 
Splendors ripe upon thy breast, 

Life, virtue and bestowing 
Out of thy bosom blest. 

90 



There's a crown upon thy glory, 

A scepter by thy side, 
And a magic telling story 

To the dwellers far and wide. 

Courts, pageantries, romances, 

Sweet singers of delight, 
Princess and knightly dances 

Are on thy bosom bright. 
Dreams, prophecies and visions 

In pomped procession go; 
And their marches pour derisions 

On the brightest dreams we know. 

Thou art beauty to beholders, 

Power pulsing to the breast 
As we tower a head and shoulders 

And are snorting in our zest. 
As a boy within thee sported, 

The man upon thee dreams, 
By old age thou wilt be courted 

As a rainbow river gleams. 

There are rivers from the mountains 

With classic dream and song; 
But the mighty lakes are fountains 

That make a river strong. 
There are rivers more attended 

By classic dream and lore; 
But none can be more splendid 

Than the river at my door. 



THE SPHERE SUPREME. 

Oh sphere supreme! Oh golden mass divine! 
Vast globe enthroned within the azure skies! 
Greet solar soul transcendently benign 
With infinite, most infinite supplies 
Of light and life! If not upon the eyes 
And heart's unsatiation how could we dream 
Of such a world? Did being ever rise 
To match thy height or passion ever stream 
The images that fully symbolize 

Thy glorious nature? No heav'n of heav'ns could seem 
Diviner in our sight with splendors more supreme. 

Oh what art thou, thou world divinity, 
So high enthroned upon the heightless height, 

.91 



With such an infinite infinity 
Of golden splendors as doth illume and dight 
The wide celestial hemisphere as a bright 
Habitation! What art thou resplendent 
Spirit of life's omnipotent delight 
That all creations of low or train attendant 
Greatness worship thee with solemn lifted sight! 
Oh what art thou, so mighty and transcendent 
O'er nature and her hosts so helpless and dependent! 

Thou art a mass of pure effulgence — 
An unveiled and unapproachable sphere of light 
Whose blinding brightness makes indulgence 
Safe only in the distance — a dazzling sight 
And eye-destroying vision on the might 
Of even nature's strength — an incandescence 
Of unendurable brilliancy and white 
Incinerations before appalled sense — 
A glowing concentration of the bright 
Unkindled fires of nature, with a fence 
Of mighty distance round her furnaces intense. 

Thou art the earth's life. Thy distant presence 
A fountain is that doth forever stream 
The floods of life impassioned and immense. 
Great golden tides that only dream can dream 
Forever flow with gifts of life supreme 
To feed the soul of this decaying world. 
Her frame, her heart, her pumping veins doth teem 
With energies ^nd latent powers uncurled 
To glowing sensibility. All earth doth seem 
Alive and quick. The spirit blind and whirled 
Comes up to consciousness and rules the masses hurled. 

There is no thing or creature in the earth 
But what thou liftest into life and brightness. 
Thou baptizest thy daughter's every birth 
Deep in thy heart so glowing with delightness. 
Empty, blind and deaf, cold and deacT and sightless 
Are they themselves, but thy smile on them brings 
The spirit forth in beautiful bedightness. 
All nature is divined and upward springs 
To live with thee upon the planes so heightless. 
Thou givest earth these golden golden wings 
And every mighty birth forever soars and sings. 

Each softest lamp that twinkles through the night 
Or glowing fire that flashes thwart the day 
Was kindled first by some keen point of light 
That sped from thee and wandered far astray. 

92 



The fierce internal fires that often sway 
The passions of the earth's volcanic heart 
But image forth the mighty storms that play 
Upon thy breast and makes thee what thou art. 
A line of lightnings coruscate the way 
From earth to thee and lightens up the chart 
With bright elliptic lines as round thee she doth dart. 

All organic and inorganic earth 
Responds to thee and palpitating pants 
With passionate regenerated birth 
As thou dost rise on her beholding glance. 
The hopes and dreams that slumber in the trance 
Unconsciousness wakes from a dreamless night 
And like spring births before thee madly dance. 
Both sense and soul wild drunken with the sight 
Of thy transcendent glories doth advance 
Until their strength is blinded to thy might 
And their enraptured song doth rise unto the height. 

All summer long from thy supremest throne 
Thou dost immortalize the golden hours 
And rulest o'er an empire all thine own, 
Of bluest seas, isles, continents and towers 
Where being in its perfect glory flowers. 
The world and life is cast into a trance 
Beneath the splendors of thy effulgent dowers 
And in the ardor of each passion pants 
Between desire for soft enshading bowers 
And another view of the blinding blinding glance 
That all created things with beauty doth enhance. 

All summer long from thy sublimest throne, 
Perpendicular upon the heightless height, 
In radiances the spheres responsive own 
Thou pourest forth super-celestial might. 
Thy king-like generosity doth delight 
To flood the boundless reaches of the skies 
With infinite transparencies and bright 
Impassioned beautifuls. Thy rich supplies 
Of transcendental life and love and light 
Renew all strength and ever energize 
All things that dwell on earth for their immortal rise. 

In the autumnal season of the year, 
Upon these awful cupolas of light, 
Around the boundaries of the hemisphere 
And up, far up the heaven's supremest height 
Thou dost create the worlds that seem the bright 
Transfigurations of the earth and designed 

93 



To steep her soul in infinite delight. 
What tranquilities the vast horizons bind! 
What sublimities the arches blue bedight! 
What passions pure of an immortal kind 
Are in the atmospheres and all in thraldom wind! 

In the autumnal season of the year 
Thou bringest on a glorious progeny. 
Like visitors from thine own golden sphere 
Thou leadest forth in noblest majesty, 
Magnificence and pomp the days that be 
In ripe perfection. As a mighty train 
Of golden incarnations or the free 
And disembodied spirits of domain, 
In pageantries enthralling all who see 
Thou leadest them with high prophetic strain 
Across the earth and sea and up the azure plane. 

Thou dost awake man's dead and groveling spirit 
And frontest him in all thy splendors bright. 
At thy arise and bright approaches near it 
Time's blinding scales are torn from off his sight. 
Lost in a most bewildering delight 
Man cannot see for blind the vision renders 
Ere it creates the consciousness of might. 
Brief is the night; soon, soon thy glory tenders 
The strength to mount to contemplation's height. 
Oh what a change when forth from nature's fenders 
Our spirits rise to view thy heaven crowning splendors! 

Strange, strange and inconceivable it seems, 
That though thou art the parent of the earth 
And nursest up this mortal mind with streams 
Of life and light that from thy heart have birth, 
How few, how few amid their selfish mirth 
E'er pause before the high sublimities 
With which thy glorious being doth engirth 
And strike this blind intelligence! Why is 
This lightning eye so blinded to thy worth 
As never once unto the grave to see 
The most divinest sight the Infinite can free? 

The pastured spirit of the field is blind 
And though thy presence on the eyeballs rest 
No motions rise of an immortal kind 
Like mighty tides in its unpassioned breast. 
But why should man whom heaven's high behest 
Bids to ascend the vast ascensive scale 
Of life see not the gloriousness expressed 
In thee? Oh this is mystery strange to pale 

94 



The countenance and wisdom of the best! 
Is man a beast that time and sense so veil 
What all the world but man with venerations hail? 

Why should the trifles of the hour — the pleasures 
Of the phantom passing moments — the gain 
That selfishness unto her hunger measures' — 
The change and loss and spirit killing pain 
So fill the hearf and blind the sightless brain 
To where and what thou art? Though thou dost ride 
The heavens and the summer noon, sustain- 
ing all, the only uneclipsable, the wide 
Generations that but an hour remain 
Behold thee not, but in the darkness hide, 
The darkness of the light intense from every side. 

What are the vain and dazzling pageantries 
Which women, children, presidents and kings 
Throw round the hour of their ephemeralities 
That pass away swifter than lightning wings? 
What are earth's processional pomps and things 
Of bright spectacular that so array 
Themselves unto the senseless heart that springs 
To every flash athwart the strength of day? 
What are brilliant demonstrations and rings 
Of thunderous applause when just before us lay 
Thy purities and splendors to lead us on our way? 

If one should stand to contemplate and pause 
By city, mountain, forest, plain or sea, 
At the first glance a sudden spasm draws 
Protecting shields upon the eyes and the 
Universe is kinged with infinite majesty. 
The vision with intensity so burns 
The living spirit that thy sublimity 
Of dazzling brightness he never more unlearns. 
Thou settest free the magnanimity 
In men. Unto its kindred soul it turns, 
Awed by the solemn sight the multitude so spurns. 

He looketh up with infinite contemplation. 
Thy spirits pure from the heights of heaven fall 
And he responds to thy regeneration. 
He feels the mighty ministries that call 
The living personality — that install 
Him in his right inheritance — that enthrone 
Him on his own intelligence and enthrall 
Him to the moral that is most and not his own. 
Like fellowship with an archangel tall, 
Great passions, powers and elements unknown 
Come up to consciousness and mount to being's throne. 

95 



No wonder man has often worshipped thee; 
Thou so transcendest every earthly thing 
And all impassioned dreams of purity 
That from the height upon our visions wing 
That the wise and good but hesitate to sing 
Thee as divine. The universal source 
Of life — unfailing — unreplenished — king 
Of all creations — the sustaining force 
Of worlds and men that in succession spring 
To haste around this transitory course — 
Thou seemest like a god to guilt, grief and remorse. 

What wonder then that spirits so surrounded 
By this contentious unresponsiveness 
To questions stark which being has propounded 
Should in its strife give one prophetic guess 
Unto the soul that heaven and earth doth bless 
With new and pure creations! Thou dost sign 
By thy effulgeneies, spotless, spotless 
Purities and inspirations all divine 
The highest that before us finds express. 
The strength of life's unsatiated pine 
Well might it worship thee till brighter on them shine 

When standing on the unresponsive earth, 
When gazing with a worship on the dawn, 
When thou dost rise in all thy solemn mirth 
And night dark veils are off thy face withdrawn 
As shadows from the rain awakened dawn, 
When life and hope and joy and truth and right 
Thou givest, when Life's profoundest thought is gone 
And long been lost in the surrounding night, 
How natural that spirits bound by brawn 
Should homage lift and offer in thy sight 
The reverence of the heart, its service and delight? 

Thou goest forth and who can follow thee! 
What heart and mind of vastest amplitude! 
What nature, strength and white intensity 
Inhabiting the azure altitude! 
What virtue with its passions deep imbued 
With majesty, solemnity and might! 
What spirit that creation has endued 
With noblest gifts of fulness and delight! 
What glorious genius that ever is renewed 
By thy creating soul and is as bright 
As if thy very life were in his soul and sight! 

Far, far aloft upon thy course sublime 
Thou sailest on, the world's divinest dream, 
An incarnation to boundless space and time 

96 



Of purity and splendor all supreme. 
Thy radiant emanations ever stream 
With lightning pinioned passions, and frees 
Such effulgencies derisions gleam 
On all magnificence, pomp and idealities 
Of genius, for thy solemn visions seem 
The sphere, the empire of sublimities, 
Of splendor winged dreams and their enthroned divinities. 

Far, far aloft upon thy course sublime 
Thou sailest past the empires of the earth, 
Unmindful of the mighty works of time, 
Of civilizations and this immortal birth. 
Man and his sciences of long historic worth 
Have birth and death before thy presence bright 
But still thy course and countenance of mirth 
Are shadowless with infinite delight. 
Worlds glowing hot from center to their girth 
Burn out and vanish from our mortal sight 
But thou dost brighter grow upon the heightless height. 

Far, far aloft upon thy course sublime, 
As glorious or more than at creation's dawn 
Thou sailed down the course of space and time 
And the swift hours and their ephemeral spawn 
A moment gaze and thou art onward gone. 
Dynasties, eons and millions mantled years 
As spectators stand upon the lawn 
Of morning and instantly blank disappears 
The universe into the darkness drawn. 
Thou sailest on thy circles wide careers 
The only uneclipsable, unvanquished of the spheres. 

Far, far aloft upon thy course sublime 
Thou sailest on to far eternity, 
And ages vast of strife and change and crime 
Are rising up to question what may be 
This glorious dream approaching now is thee; 
But past them all upon the heightless height 
Blinding all with the infinite generosity 
Of thy being, thou sailest with delight, 
Effulgent brightness, sublimest majesty, 
Lightning emanations, omnipotential might 
And transcendental splendors on all creation's sight. 

NATURE'S PEACE 

Dost thou seek nature's peace 

Upon thy weary strife? 
Vain is the wished release 

For thou art nature's life. 

97 



THE ROBIN. 

Oh crimson breast! Oh crimson breast! 

Oh crimson crimson heart! 
Oh welcome guest! Oh welcome guest! 

Thou dost my fancies start. 
Inspire and rapture and employ- 
Are born in nature's peace and joy. 

Thy sisterhood of brighter plume 

And lyric hearted song, 
Have left the city to its doom 

And in green forests throng. 
But city parks and garden trees, 
Thy human heart doth equal please. 

What human heart, what human heart, 

After a winter's reign. 
Has never leaped with joyful start 

At thy first springtime strain? 
At thy first note we lift our eyes 
As after rainbows in the skies. 

And when at night they all come home 

From worry, toil and strife, 
When strength and hope that daily roam 

At eve join babe and wife, 
Thy crimson breast our eyes have seen 
With these pure loves is mixed between. 

Across our spring and summer light 

Thy bosom glad we see; 
We sorrow when the autumn's blight 

Afar doth banish thee. 
In winter storms we sometimes yearn 
For thee to hail the spring's return. 

Thou hast no strength or speed or skill, 

No weapon for the fight; 
No eagle talon, sworded bill 

Or war enkindling sight; 
Thou wast not made for hate or strife, 
For selfishness or mortal life. 

But thou art rest and peace and love 

And close to human heart; 
Thou dost incarnate from above 

A small divine impart 
Of that one love which does divide 
In all pure loves through time and tide. 

98 



Thou hast no plumage of delight, 
As sun-kissed clouds on high; 

As tintings of the flower beds bright 
Or iris-colored eye; 

Rich beauties that from heaven shine 

Are not a heritage of thine. 

But beauty oft is shining form 

Without a soul within; 
Thy life domestic, pure and warm 

Is far away from sin. 
The stainless, pure and passioned heart 
Needs not the rainbow hues of art. 

Thy soul hast no delirious strain 
That wakes my sleeping dreams, 

That bears me to a golden plane 
Of odors, sounds and gleams; 

No music matchless and divine 

That fills all hearts till more we pine. 

Thy one and simple pleasing song 

Is calm and faith and love; 
Divorcing from the earthly throng, 

Uniting us above. 
All simple loves from ill divide 
And join with all beyond the tide. 

Thy cheery song that greets the morn, 
Thy plaintive evening psalm, 

-Upon a world by sorrow torn 
It falls as healing balm. 

Oh what is earth's most peerless song 

To love most pure on sinful wrong? 

As is the lay of a child or wife, 

As is the song of home, 
Unto the measures vast of life 

And classic airs of Rome, 
So is thy music to the heart 
With something these could never bart. 

Then build beside my crowded home, 

The blue eggs softly nest; 
The gardens round for forage roam 

But turn thee to thy nest. 
To see thee and thy happy mate 
Is more than earth's high gilded state. 

Through fever day and dewy night, 
Extreme of calm and storm, 

99 



Thy nature with a deep delight 

Beats through thy bosom warm 
The rich pre-natal mother mirth 
That nourishes thy eggs to birth. 

A hunger cry, four mouths of need, 

A parent's tireless toil; 
A ruthless hand, a heart's implead, 

Though weak, defense in broil; 
A hundred lessons for the heart 
Thy actions to the wise impart. 

The smaller fruits we give to thee; 

The grapes and currants win; 
The larger luscious taste them free 

Though some would call it sin. 
Why should'st thou lack thy frugal meal 
From thy own father's boundless weal? 

The berry man may call a curse 

And guard his juicy wealth; 
The cherry man may rave still worse 

And shoot thee down by stealth. 
Woe, woe to us! Who, who could live 
If greater theft none did forgive? 

With all thy sins, thy depth of breast, 

Thy bosom's sinless beat, 
Thy purity and faith and rest 

I would my heart could greet. 
There's naught within the world I see 
Like peace and love and purity. 

For thou and all things like to thee 

Of nature, man and art 
A longing of intensity 

Wakes up within the heart, 
To be and love and live like thee 
In that great heart where all are free. 



A SAUCER OF PANSlES. 

In the spring my mother plants 
A bed of pansies fine; 

Then with a gardener's art 
She nurses them divine 

Until the blossoms burst 
And beauty forth doth shine. 

100 



Then every other day 

A saucerful as bright 
As beauty ever lay 

Before the poet's sight, 
She plucks and bears away 

My simple room to light. 

When I come home and dress 

And call my own an hour, 
I note the kindliness 

That placed the rainbow flower 
And in it breathed I guess 

Another heart and dower. 

Today the purple deep 

The yellow beauties fringe; 

Blue and white tomorrow sleep 
On a bank of velvet singe; 

And the very rainbows leap 

Where their tender edges hinge. 

Upon the pansies bright 

I dream and dream and dream 

Of visions of delight 

With which my youth did teem, 

But life with deadly blight 

Has flung on autumn's stream. 

I see the heights divine 

That are throned above the spheres; 
And I pine and pine and pine 

Mid my loss and grief and fears 
And my heart bursts in my eyne 

With the language of our tears. 

That world upon me flies 

That sorrow brings to birth. 
The thinker doth arise 

That looks beyond the earth 
And virtue true that cries 

For life and love and worth. 

Oh flowers of purity! 

Oh dreams of life and light! 
In the saucer I can see 

Our being's heightless height 
And all that is beneath 

Struck through and through with blight. 

101 



THE PIONEER'S SONG. 

My young soul left the haunts of men 

And faced the ancient wood. 
With axe and strength and honest ken 

Amid the wild I stood. 
My frosty steel with echoes loud 

Did blaze the nation's way; 
The maple, pine and oak were bowed 

Though some were left to stay. 

But row or clump or single tree 

If left alone to stand 
To shelter from the north or sea, 

Home, hope and virgin land, . 
Though it were sound from girth to heart, 

From root unto the skies, 
Some hidden blight would on it dart 

And life withdraw supplies. 

With other trees it might despise 

The storms that round did rage, 
Both deeper sink and higher rise 

And greener grow with age. 
But once alone and when all seemed 

To nurse it to its height 
The strength of life and while we dreamed 

Was blasted in our sight. 

We mortals are like forest trees, 

Not made to stand alone; 
Disease and death upon us seize 

If others we disown. 
But purple strength and greenest life 

That nature ever gives 
Shall more abound and conquer strife 

If each in other lives. 

Then let our roots in mother earth 

More intertwist below 
Where knots of rugged strength and worth 

In hidden darkness grow. 
Since earth and all her sons are one 

More interlock our roots, 
Each feeding each, together run 

And reap life's riper fruits. 

Then let our branches far above, 

Like wide encircling arms, 
Like all embracing sheltering love 

Against life's selfish harms, 

102 



Be opened wide and farther reach 
And locked as naught unbreaks. 

The soul that gives its best to each, 
From all more boundless takes. 

So back to back and heart to heart 

Life's storms we may defy. 
The ancient virtues undepart 

And man be lifted high. 
Then young and green and rich in song, 

With pure arboreal rage, 
The brotherhood will grow more strong 

And rise from age to age. 



THE SKY AND SEA LINE. 

I never gaze upon the sky 

Where it doth meet the sea 
But something from the sight of it, 
Some beauty from the light of it, 
Some tension from the might of it 
Deep enters into me. 

I grow oblivious to the world 

And give the spirit sway. 
A strange, mysterious drift of life, 
A rare, celestial gift of life, 
Power, passion, pulse and lift of life 

Doth bear me far away. 

I give my sails unto thy breeze, 

Oh boundless ocean wide! 
The vast, profound and deep of thee, 
Majestic course and sweep of thee, 
Momentum, tides and leap of thee 

I never dreamed to ride. 

Lost to myself I fly away 

Where mortals never sail. 
The man that dreams is found in me, 
He leaps up with a bound in me, 
I feel him crowned and gowned in me, 

And doth the prospect hail. 

Oh ocean rich and deep and wide, 

Roll, roll into my soul! 
Unto the dream and dulse of life, 
The passion, poise and pulse of life, 

103 



The earthquake and convulse of life 
Thou dost my spirit pole. 

Sail on! Adventure forth! Oh sail! 

Thy bark is on the sea. 
These skies upon the heights around, 
These worlds that lend their lights around, 
These prophet songs and sights around, 

Proclaim eternity. 



NATURE'S BOUQUET. 

Old Nature smiled and sent to me 

A rare bouquet of flowers. 
She knew I loved the beautiful, 
But bound in courses dutiful, 
Still loved her though so sootyful 

I battled with the hours. 

When I came in and saw the sight 

I stood in blank surprise. 
Something within the deep in me, 
A higher soul asleep in me 
With sudden start did leap in me . 

Like visions on the eyes. 

Quick down I sat with hungry greed 

Before the banquet feast. 
I drank the most divine in life; 
It seemed the very vine of life 
Was crunching out the wine of life 

Unto a poet priest. 

The green was gladdest, growing green, 
The white was heaven's white, 

The red, purple and golden hues, 

Pinks, lavenders and olden blues, 

All vital with unfolden dews 
Did quicken with delight. 

The fragile, fair and fondest forms 

Seemed summer elfins nigh; 
And soon the fairies dancing gay, 
With backward, sideward prancing gay, 
And singing, smiling, glancing gay, 
Waltzed right across my eye. 

But Oh, the fragrance, fragrance sweet! 
It seemed the breath of life. 

104 



I passed beyond the portal dreams, 
Beheld the high, immortal dreams, 
Lived in majestic, courtal dreams 
With passions rich and rife. 

With magic soon the flowers divine 

Took on a rarer grace. 
The dr^am of all the dreams of life 
Eclipsed all rainbow gleams of life, 
With smiles that were the creams of life 

Stood with me face to face. 

And then I gathered up the flowers 

That had my spirit blest; 
And with a smile, a touch, a bliss, 
No lover thinks too much amiss, 
And crimsoned with just such a kiss 

I pinned them on her breast. 



THE AUTUMN WIND. 

Autumnal wind! Swift, swift resistless force! 
Keen breath of life! Spirit of dominations! 
Great nature's birth from the eternal source 
Where being drinks this drunk exhileration ! 
Vast, disembodied, senseless impulsation 
And elemental passion of the earth! 
Dynamic swift and glorious exaltation 
Circling the globe, panting from heart to girth! 
Quick'ning, piercing, lifting, sweeping inspiration, 
Scorning all things of stagnant death and dearth, 
Renewing all in life and breathing strength and mirth! 

All nature doth rejoice in thee. Her glow 
And swift impetuosity did sire 
Thy boundless soul. The solar cosmic "go" 
Driving the globes feeds thee the vast inspire 
That headlong drives with infinite desire. 
The mighty seas foaming to heaven leap; 
The awful dome is charged and full of ire; 
The mountains rock, the plains thrill to the deep; 
And forests are a thunder flinging lyre; 
All things on earth feel thy contagious sweep! 
Oh vast unbodied wind, on, on your courses keep! 

Beat on me, Wind! I love such passions rife. 
Thy resurrection breath sweeps o'er the dead, 

105 



Then instantly one with dynamic life 
Leaps up and in his breast and flaming head 
The white steel strength thou hast so generous fed. 
Is he not thine? Not boundless, strong and free, 
Organic and heroic as is bred 
Out of the earth, the mountains, sky and sea? 
With whom of all the earth can such be wed? 
The hungers of a starved infinity 
Can find alone a hope and glorious life in thee. 

No wonder I am filled with wild delight, 
Expansion feel and palpitate with power! 
No wonder loined and harnessed with a might 
That only once this mortal can endower! 
Off, off I fling all memories that devour, 
Scorn to the dust the customs that engage, 
Breathe virtue new and who can cringe or cower 
When thy great soul doth feed the spirit's rage? 
Disembodied and lifted to life's tower 
The infinite thirst of being I assuage 
And find the cosmic self, space, time, nor things can cage. 

Oh what a joy to front thee to thy face, 
To breast thy strength and stay thee on thy course, 
To lock with thee in that divine embrace 
Earth's giant sons have in their primal source 
And glad renew when time doth them divorce! 
'Tis life to meet; 'tis more than life to tussle 
As matchless men each other would unhorse, 
As angry seas the sailor would unvessel, 
As cosmic minds battle chaotic force, 
As structure men fight on the airy tressle, 
So with thy fighting soul my soul doth hug and wrestle. 

I'm lifted high; driven and swept along; 
Strange loaded up and overcharged with life; 
One with the one; as many as the throng 
And multiplied with measures rich and rife. 
I'm a newer incarnation of the strife, 
But swifter, fiercer, more intense and free 
Than tempest souls cut by the lightning knife 
And chainless forth with wildest passions flee. 
Trampling the earth, screaming like insane fifes, 
Soaring above, tempestuous in my glee, 
I mount the darkened dome and ride the billowed sea. 

Now I am like a fearless charioteer 
Upon a course of glorious celebration; 
Standing erect I ride the hemisphere 
Thrice drunken with insane exhileration. 

106 



These fiery steeds of furious imputation, 
So rearing, plunging, galloping uncontrolled 
Defy my muscled strength and domination 
And bind me in their struggles manifold 
Before I curb their blind and fierce elation. 
Drive on, drive on, Oh courses swift and bold 
For still more elemental thy spirits mine shall hold! 

Now I am like an aviator swift, 
Adventurous I dare the frail machine, 
The lever pull and with a sudden lift 
Soar up the height with passions rich and keen. 
On, on I drive o'er stream and field and treen; 
Now up the dome of vast immensity, 
Now plumb descend almost unto the green, 
Now fighting with a white intensity 
A sudden foe almighty and unseen, 
Victorious now life's new propensity 
Doth far outride the storm and scorns yon darkened density. 

Now I am like a youth upon a horse, 
But long restrained from mingling in the fight; 
With vast desire, mcmentum, sweep and force 
,1 rush unto the field that is in flight. 
Up, up doth surge the elemental might 
Of nature, and with a. thunderous shcut, 
And with a sword swift as the lightning white, 
And straight against the mightiest of the bout 
At dead full speed I plunge me with delight. 
Down, down they go! Down, down and down and out 
Life drives the mighty host in dark precipitous rout. 

Now I am like the genius of the hour, 
A spirit of unvanquishable force, 
Sweeping my way with glorious endower 
And charged and charged from the eternal source. 
High, high in heav'n on my triumphant course 
I sweep around the vast terrestial girth. 
And this old globe, death doth from life divorce, 
Doth shake and shake and spring again to birth. 
The great world-soul, forgetful of remorse, 
Comes up asrain and scenters all the earth 
As I inspire the globe and feed it strength and mirth. 

Oh mighty wind, through thee I once looked forth 
To winter storms and all that earth devours 
As the unconquered eagle fronts the north 
And screams defy to -all consuming powers. 
Thy elemental and dynamic dowers 
Of life did girdle with victorious might 

107 



And planted soul on time's unvanquished towers, 
Supremely poised and empired in her right. 
I was the man of life's immortal hours; 
The cosmic soul burned in me glowing white 
And this vast universe I fronted with delight. 

But now, omnipotential Breath of life! 
What was is dream and never more can be; 
Decaying frame and toil and grief and strife 
Have shorn the strength of my young spirit free. 
Thy quickening soul I yet can feel and see 
But the fierce impetuosity and sweep 
Of glorious life no more enfoldeth me. 
Oh boundless loss! I stand and think and weep 
When on some height I felt thee onward flee; 
Then wise and strong I watch thee from the steep, 
Choke down the vain regret and calm descend the deep. 

Nov. 1913. 



SUMMER. 

Oh! This is the famous Miss Summer I see, 
Who was mentioned by poets and lovers to me; 
And mentioned in music and passionate praise 
As the vision divine in the midst of our days. 

When hearing thy fame by the hearing of ears, 
Then a vision arose or came down from the spheres; 
But spirit and dream must forever more pine 
For the heart's very presence and beauty divine. 

As now unexpected and sudden we meet 

How my heart gives a bound and a double-quick beat! 

My passions like fire in their ardors arise 

By the kindling sparks that are fed from thy eyes. 

Thou art flesh, blood and bone, but something more rare 

Than the fairest of women did ever yet wear; 

A something that hovers around the ideal 

Which we never can name but we always can feel. 

A beauty embodied, a vision divine 

Are thy physical graces in equipoise fine; 

Thy cheeks and thy brow and thy eye and thy lips 

Doth the poet's bright song and the lover's eclipse. 

Thy face is a splendor of golden delight 

Baptized in the sun when the morning was bright; 

108 



No! Born in the sun and the spirits of gold 
Were poured in thy frame the divinest of mould. 

Thy brow like a marble is spotless and white, 
Unwrinkled, unblemished and circled with light; 
Adornment for grace or a goddess of art, 
It is infinite more when enthroned on a heart. 

Thy cheeks are as soft and as rich as the wealth 
That has ever yet shined from the fountain of health; 
No pansy, no violet, no lily, no rose, 
Could image or add to thy deep vital glows. 

Thy crimson-fed lips, how they tremble with bliss 
From the spirit of Life and her last burning kiss! 
Thy spirit I see at those portals doth yearn 
"With a rapture divine for that spirit's return. 

Thy eyes. Oh thy eyes! Was there e'er such a sight 

In the gleam and the glance of the stars of the night! 

The planet-like fires and the lovers' bright eyne 

Are but the stray beams from the brightness of thine. 

But thy spirit, thy spirit, thy spirit of grace 
Is richer by far than the signs of thy face. 
'Tis only life's strongest and longest that seal 
On the physical frame that resists the ideal. 

Thy love is as golden and full as the sun, 

Through thy heart and thy veins I can see it now run. 

A spirit as rich and as free to impart 

As the sun in the sky is the soul that thou art 

In love all the virtues in richness abide, 

As beautiful dreams in the flowers of a bride. 

The graces are born and in love ever live, 

And grow as themselves in their giving they give. 

Thou lovest all things be they low or be high, 
Prom the flowers in the grass to the Soul in the sky. 
Thine is the true love for thy heart's overflow 
Gives the given himself and thyself and thy glow. 

In heart nor in mind has the body of sense 
Wrought in thee its power or its darkness intense; 
Thy spirit divine is dominated in might 
And its energies rule all the fleshly bedight. 

Was ever a heart with the passions of love 
Not pure as the skies, and the spirits above? 

109 



The selfish that hides in the earth's honeyed praise 
Is not in thy motives, thy words or thy ways. 

Ideals sublime that are far out of sight 

Keep pure most the cause of life's blasting and blight 

Not the salt-savored sea nor tne blue azure sky 

Is as pure as the heart which now feedeth thine eye. 

Thou art peaceful and calm, soul centered and still, 
Though the chambers of life are at more than their fill. 
Thy multiplied gifts are in balance divine, 
Overflow and at rest in the midst of our pine. 

As gentle and soft and as tenderly kind 
As the sorrows and wounds of the world ever find; 
The sickness and sin and our mortal disease 
Find a cure in thy hand when no other can ease. 

So patient, compassioned and sympathied deep, 
All high spirit hearts in thy virtues are steeped. 
Domestic, contented and all that endears 
To the home-loving heart mid the turbulent years. 

How happy thou art! All our words of delight 
With their passioned filled souls give no image to sight; 
A maiden with flowers in her hands and her breast 
From winter's wild heart would faint symbol thee best. 

A drunken, delirious and ecstatic joy 
Soon intelligence, morals and all will destroy; 
But happiness, gladness, rejoicing and song, 
Are sandals and crown and a girdle most strong. 

As flowers in the field or the birds in the sky, 

As the moutain-fed streams or the clouds as they fly, 

As the earth-kissing winds or the innocent heart, 

So glad and much gladder Miss Summer thou art. 

As bright as a dream of the dawn or the cope, 
As rich as a joy and as young as a hope, 
True, sweet and as kind as a dream of the heart 
So fine and diviner Miss Summer thou art. 

Thy virtues in union or each one alone 
I could sing the whole day with a still rising tone; 
What thou art and what like, what done and could be 
Would be songs to my harp till from hence I shall flee. 

110 



Such women as thou art the soul of man's dreams. 
Thou unsealest the fountains and feedest the streams 
That feedest his heart with the measures of life 
And buildest in virtue in spite of the strife. 

So thee will I tell, for the truth ever springs 
Unto such as thou art with the lightest of wings; 
I'll whisper it now, though I buried it deep 
For in spite of my heart to tny heart it doth leap. 

In far behind days, in the vision of dream, 

Then an image arose with thy summer soul gleam: 

All, all of thy soul in her spirit did shine 

And like thee in form as is my dream to thine. 

With passion, delight and the rapture of youth 
I pledged her myself at the altar of truth; 
When waking I said to the phantoms that stream: 
"I will wait till I meet with the soul of my dream." 

While waiting for thee then the storms of the north 
With their night and their winter and fury burst forth; 
As through the long hours as I waited for morn 
I was caught and was driven and beaten and torn. 

I was wounded and scarred and the time-spirit filled 
Till the image divine in my spirit was killed; 
I have been baptized in the earth's bloody gores 
And am now only fit for the service of wars. 

Now a rock-hewn image of winter I stand; 

Though a smile has my face and a flower holds my hand, 

Down deep in my heart are the farthest extremes 

To the soft summer soul that upon me now beams. 

So what I once dreamed I will leave now unsaid 

Though I utter one blessing upon thy fair head: 

In eastern dominions where suns ever shine 

May thy soul meet and wed with the heart that is thine! 

"My spirit fountains overflow; 

Thy music does impart 
A crown that has a crimson glow 

To both my head and heart. 
Ere each doth on their journey fare 

I'll cast from off my mind 
An image I have treasured there 

That doth the moment blind." 

' 111 



"When but a little trippling slip, 

As bright as sunny May, 
With April eye and laughing lip 

I met thee on my way. 
Thy arms of strength with tender might 

Did fold me in thy breast; 
Did fold me deep, deep out of sight 

In love and gladness blest." 

"Then on my ears there fell a song 

That love sings to the heart; 
The murmurs of thy passion strong 

And echoes ne'er depart. 
I know, I know by those warm tears, 

Those kisses most divine, 
There's more in thee than winter's years, 

Or summer's heart of wine/' 

"Before us yonder shines the sun; 

The morning doth invite; 
Your journeys to the 'sunrise run, 

Oh come! for my delight 
Is just to hear thee sing life's songs 

And those that are to be 
When life has triumphed o'er all wrongs 

With love and purity." 

Oh yes I will go! I can walk, run or fly 

And sing thee the songs that can never more die. 

The hearts that love hearts with no self-seeking pine 

Find others, themselves and the heart most divine. 



SPRING HYMN. 

Hail springtime, Oh hail! 

Hail soul of the year! 
The winter's wild wail 

Has passed from the sphere, 
Has passed and thy glory 

Streams bright on the earth, 
Which cold, weak and hoary, 

Renews her young birth. 



The dome of deep blue, 
With sun on his throne, 

Rains pure golden dew 
Which all things now own. 

The earth doth unfolden 

112 



Her bosom's warm glow, 
And life with a golden 
Reviving doth. flow. 

The flowers doth unfold 

Their rainbow hearts deep; 
Birds plumaged with gold 

Their songs cannot keep; 
The forests and oceans, 

The fountains and fields 
Are glad with emotions 

Thy presence unseals. 

All nature is green; 

Her skies are more blue 
Than mortals have seen 

Since Eden was new. 
The beauty of story 

And heavenly mirths 
Now mirror their glory 

In green singing births. 

Life now is all love 

And love is all life; 
Like heaven above 

It healeth all strife. 
In love's vital passion 

Are powers which unfold 
The lowest in fashion 

We joy to behold. 

Hail soul of the spring! 

Oh breathe thy warm breath! 
To breathe, shine and sing. 

Thou wakest all death. 
Away my heart's sin sense 

And sorrow's wild wail! 
Thy beauty and music 

And glory, all hail! 



THE STREAM. 

High up in the mountains 
Far above the earth 

'Mong the silver fountains 
First I had my birth. 

Where all things are olden, 
Purest, vital, best, 

113 



To the morning golden 
Nature brought me blest. 

Like a poet's vision, 

Like a beauty's dream, 
Like a glad derision 

To all things that seem; 
Leaping, flashing, singing, 

Throwing echoes sweet, 
I am more for winging 

Than swift gliding feet. 

Over rocks the coldest 

Leaping as if mad; 
Through the forest oldest, 

With the fairies glad; 
Dancing in the brightness 

Of the golden sun; 
Oh there was delightfulness, 

Singing, on the run! 

Past the greenest tillage, 

Meadows, flocks and flowers; 
Past the country village, 

Past my mother's bowers, 
Wide and deep and stronger, 

Looking far before, 
Longer, Oh no longer 

Stream the mountain bore! 

A city's flaming lurage 

Bade me onward go; 
Soon her vilest sewerage 

In my heart did flow. 
Viler grew the fashion 

Round old nature's dream; 
Viler grew the passion 

That my heart did stream. 

Oh how I did sicken 

From that dread disease! 
Blow, blow ye winds that quicken! 

Blow me far from these! 
Past the deadly nation, 

Host and sewer and death; 
Past, past and with elation 

Drinking nature's breath. 

Flowing, downward flowing, 
Deep and rich and bright; 

114 



Ripest splendors glowing 
On my breast of might. 

Downward I am going, 
Going to the sea; 

Life and virtue throwing, 
Throwing wide and free. 

Yonder is the ocean, 

Yonder is my rest. 
I feel her migTity motion 

Waking in my breast. 
Measureless and boundless 

The circles of the sea; 
I plunge in the profoundness 

Forever there to be. 



THE BRIDE OF THE SUN. 

Oh hail, bright maiden, hail! 

From thy mortal swoon 
What spirit rent the veil? 
What life restored the boon 
And sent thy queenly soul to seek thy lover noon? 

Who nursed thee from the trance? 

Who broke the shadowed spell 
That in the hour of dance 

Upon thy being fell? 
Who brought thee to the light where starry splendors dwel 

Oh hail, bright maiden, hail! 

What life reviving dream 
O'er thy brain did sail, 

Upon thy heart did stream, 
That from thy liquid rest thy soul it should redeem? 

Hast thy mother earth, 

The mother most divine, 
Brought thee again to birth 
And with the infant shine 
That glowed upon thy face upon that morn benign? 

In thy soul's eclipse, 

Did the love beguile 
Thy lover to thy lips 

There to rest awhile 
And did his burning kiss awake this rapturous smile? 

115 



Or hast thou been above 

In thy bower so bright 
To gaze upon thy love 

Across the cone of night 
And is this smiling life his answering delight? 

In this evening's hush 

What breath of love or wine 
Upon thy cheeks do flush 
And glows with joy divine 
Like some celestial fire that through and through doth shine. 

Perhaps some summer soul 
With magic magic flowers 
Whose living perfumes roll 
To heaven's highest towers 
Is reaching up to thee the glory of the hours. 

Perhaps a strain of life, 

The echoes of the spheres 
Has healed thee of the strife, 

Is raining on thy ears 
The fancies, joys and hopes that fed thy heart for years. 

Perhaps love's intensity, 

High as starry height, 
Deep as is the sea, 

Warm as summer night, 
Pure as whitest fire, circles thee like light. 

Perhaps the dream of dreams 
So fills the heart and brain 
Thy being over teems 
With sweet delicious pain 
That thou must wander forth where nature doth sustain. 

But why art thou so cold 

That thou dost fly apace 
From hearts that do unfold 

The fulness of their grace 
And ask but in return a smile of thy bright face? 

The dancing spirits gay 

Who love thee, in the wood 
Have left their fairy play 

And near the edge have stood, 
Have turned from watching thee to hide in solitude. 

A maiden like to thee, 
A pure and fragile cloud, 

116 



Who came up from the sea 
In her soft silver shroud 
Has gone away to weep, heart-broke by thee so proud. 

Thy sisters in the sea 

In face and form and light, 
Twin spirits like to thee, 

Are trembling through the night 
With hope that thou wilt turn and feed their longing sight. 

Stars and planets pale 

For thy love do pine; 

Their sweet lights do fail 

For their eyes divine 

Are wearied with the watch they ever keep on thine. 

Thy presence bright awakes 

The meteor from her trance 
So glad her sleep she shakes 

In her swift shining dance, 
Whose joyous love for thee now kills thy scornful glance. 

Like the very queen 

Of heaven's starry height 
Crowned with golden sheen, 

Clad in robes of light, 
Thou ridest past the earth and all that lift the sight. 

Thy faith has never doubt 

That thou shalt ever miss 
His smile which streameth out, 

Embalming many a kiss 
That rests upon thy heart prophetic of thy bliss. 

That blest and bridal day 

Must be drawing near 
That night should so array 

Her dark and cloudy sphere 
In such a flood of light, serene and pure and clear. 

All lovers on the earth 

Look up with deep delight. 
The dreams that come to birth, 

The passion pure and white, 
Are kindred unto thee, thou goddess of the night. 

Out, out of thee are dreams; 

Deep, deep in them desires; 
Down, down from thee are streams 

Of pure celestial fires 
And dreams, desires and hopes are dancing to the lyres. 

117 



Thou leadest forth the swain; 
Thou callest forth the maid; 
Was every such a twain 
As wandered down the glade 
And such another bride in golden light arrayed? 

Thy overflowing joy 

Shoots down a piercing dart 
On youth and maiden coy 
Till thy celestial art 
Has nourished into life the best within the heart. 

Thou pourest soft thy rain; 

They dream and dream and dream. 
Life nearly is insane 

Such fountains in them teem, 
And brighter than thyself the earthy bride doth seem. 

Beneath thy magic spell 

The magic word is found; 
Two fountain spirits well; 
Two hearts in one are bound 
And thou hast seen and heard, and both with gladness 

crowned, 
Through the window light 

Thou dost upon them stream; 
Thy rays of magic might 
Within their beings teem — 
A bridegroom and a bride, a dream within a dream, 

But Oh that passing cloud 

Upon thy breast and face, 
That wraps thee like a shroud 
As round a mortal race, 
To disappoint the hope that life and love embrace! 

Like ours, Oh radiant maid! 

Hast thy love a moan? 
Art thou e'er afraid 

Lest the earth's dark cone, 
Like death will come between, and leave thee all alone? 

Fear not! He an urn has filled 

With vital vital dew, 
That has been distilled 

From his dome of blue 
To sprinkle on thy heart and thy young life renew. 

He will send as now 
Fleecy sandals rare, 

118 



Stars to gem thy brow, 
Veils of misty air, 
And rainbow ribbon bands to bind thy streaming hair. 

His chariot of the wind, 

His steeds of swiftest time, 
Along the zodiac signed 
With images sublime, 
Bear thee all heaven's queen while starry echoes chime. 

In the golden dawn 

The god of life and light 
Awaits. Thou wilt be drawn 
Into his bosom bright 
And in the deep embrace be lost an hour to sight! 

Oh pure celestial maid! 

Oh bride the most divine! 
There never was displayed 

Such beauty to our eyne, 
And thou hast fed the heart of life's eternal pine, 

Farwell, chaste bride, farewell! 

May joy attend thy flight! 
My heart songs ne'er can tell 
Its wish for thy delight 
When thou ha c i- oined thy love in the bowers of morning 

bright. 

FIRE. 

Thou Spirit of Fire! Thou Spirit of Fire! 
Thou nature of passion and deepest desire! 
Thy essence divine and thy high purity 
Enchanteth the heart into union with thee. 

As lovers will trace from the time they first met 
To the hour the seal on their rapture was set, 
For pictures must rise with the fondest desire 
From hearts that are fed with the passions of fire. 

So life will now trace from the time it was born 
A few passing pictures though they have been shorn 
Of the beauty and brightness and glow of the heart 
And the something divine that eludeth all art. 

When unconscious I came as a nursling to earth 
Thou, thou wert the first that within me had birth, 
For before there was sound was the lamp of thy power 
And my soft shining eyes were enchained by the hour. 

119 



When older I grew round the hot steaming stove 
And bright burning grate would my young fancies rove; 
Till tempted, how tempted, thy law I did learn 
With the loud screaming pain of the blistering burn. 

The swimming hole there in the years that are far 
Beneath the new moon and the young opened star, 
The roaring old stump and her blazes did feed 
The eyes and the heart of a young naked breed. 

The foundry and forge with their iron, wood and coal 
Fed into me fuel for a still fiercer soul; 
Both the spark-shooting weld and the cupola stream 
Leaped into my heart like the birth of a dream. 

Some cottage or barn of that young Forest town 
Was wrapped in thy splendor and quick-fleeting gown; 
Cheap, cheap were the loss to the vision of power 
And the spirit so passing that all would devour. 

In London more large I can see down the street 

The lamplighter pass to his posts on his beat. 

Zigzag down the way we behold them flash bright, 

That long line of lamps that now pass from our sight. 

From college I came to my home in the west 
And beheld the high towers on night's shadowy breast 
Throwing splendors and dreams from the centers of light 
For miles and for miles through the deeps of the night. 

And still farther west en the wheat-billowed plain 
When the harvest was passed and was gathered the grain, 
All around was the straw and enkindled at night 
Were hundreds of flames leaping up on the sight. 

Still farther behind and still farther before 
The mind by its gift and its ardor doth soar; 
And visions of fire leaping forth on the sight 
Swift capture the soul and its passions delight. 

Our center-most city and just in its prime 

Consumed was with hunger and fury sublime; 

The church, school and home, street, store, tower and frame 

Cnased panic struck men as they burst into flame. 

Away to the north where the pine forests grow, 
What place for a spark and what fuel for a glow? 
The spark it has flashed and intense roaring fires 
Consume sky and earth in their hungry desires? 

120 



Away to the west was the grass-covered plain, 
Through the summer and autumn it dried to the grain; 
Just a glance from the sun and a wind-sweeping tide 
Of ten thousand flame tongues in their gallopings ride. 

Round, round the earth's center are mountains of fire 
That ever belch forth with the fiercest desire; 
Smoke, flame, stone and ashes in mass mount the sky 
While man in his terror and blindness must fly. 

Down, down in the earth, down, down far below 
What fierce furnace fires in her bosom must glow? 
Where all scattered fires that around us have birth 
Are focused and fixed in the heart of the earth. 

But what was she then e'er the cold round her grew, 

With fires so intense that a baby world flew 

Right out of her heart to become the full moon 

When mother and child shall have passed to their noon. 

All planets and moons have their birth in the fire, 
Even icy Neptune on the cold frozen tire; 
And some are yet burning from center to rim 
Though all must grow cold as their circles they swim. 

Oh what of the sun! Oh what of the sun! 
Where all thou has been and all thou has done, 
And all that thou art and a billion times more 
Are all gathered up in the bosom that bore. 

What storms, fiery storms where the elements pass 
From the white foaming flood into high pressured gas? 
Our earthquake, volcanic and cyclonic fires 
Are trifles to those that that bosom inspires. 

What continents, mountains and oceans of fire 
Forever burn there with the fiercest desire? 
The world all in glow from her rim to her heart 
To thee were a spark and as quick v/ould depart. 

What million of millions electrical bolts 

And each of them charged with no earth-measured volts 

Together are bound by the circling sash, 

Blinding earth and the stars as forever they flash. 

A radium soul in an infinite mass 

Of motionless, glowing and fluid-like glass; 

A purified, glorified nature of fire 

Thou feedest the heart of all beings' desire. 

121 



Thou Spirit of Fire! Thou Spirit of Fire! 
Thou nature of passion and deepest desire; 
Thy essence divine and thy high purity 
Enchanteth the heart into union with thee. 



MORNING SONJ FOR MIND. 

Oh ye sons of thought! Oh ye sons of thought! 
On a higher scale and of elements wrought 
As a head and crown and a glorious grace 
For the body strong of this brawny race. 

Oh arise, arise! Come forth to the morn 
And stand in the midst of the hour's adorn! 
Come forth to the dawn for thy place of right 
Is the morning's face and her splendors bright! 

Here the life of life. Oh the life divine! 

The richest and fullest for which we pine 

Is bursting and teaming and overflowing 

And would fill all hearts with its crimson glowing. 

The powers of the infinite universe, 
Eternal, triumphant and 'gainst the curse 
Is bursting in all and in all will pour 
The girdling strength that can wish no more. 

There is victory now and a glorious strain 
O'er the earthly hour and its loss and pain, 
O'er all the years that have heavy fled 
And the things dark buried and with the dead. 

There is heavenly hope and the boundless heart 
And the lightning joy that her eyes impart. 
The contagious life of the golden morn 
Treats all life and death of the gulf with scorn. 

Open, open thy soul to the spirits round! 
Open heart and mind oy the senses bound! 
Open every pore and the dawn divine 
Will thy veins pulsate with the purest wine. 

The hours of the dawn has the day's inspire 
And baptisms new in new rivers of fire; 
Has vision and dreams and ideals sublime 
As bright as the sun in his splendored prime. 

122 



Stand, stand to the east, to the glorious east! 
And the hungry heart that is in thee feast 
With the deep delight and the visions vast 
That the beautifuls on all spirits cast. 

Look, look to the morn! Such a flood of light 
On thy mortal course never burst to sight; 
And her granduer, greatness and glory divine 
Awakes the soul and her infinite pine. 

Drink! Drink of the dawn through thy every pore! 
Drink! Drink of the hour to thy being's core! 
Drink! Drink of the life till you sigh no more! 
You can drink inspire to a boundless store. 

Thy mind shall become like a world of light, 
Like the sun itself in his splendors bright; 
And the dreams divine which the prophets pale 
Shall thine eyes behold and with gladness hail. 

Thy invention, science and tale and rhyme 
Shall come like the souls from a higher clime. 
They shall promenade in the golden dawn 
Or like children sport on the dewy lawn. 

Thy creations then shall from earth arise 
As if born and clad with the morning skies. 
With morn in their hearts and poured on their heads 
They will be the choice whom the future weds. 

The require most vast of all mind today 
Is passion deep that the elements sway, 
Life, intelligence, truth that doth only flow 
Prom the highest hearts in their morning glow. 

This glow thou shalt find in the golden dawn 
When the veils of sense off the soul are drawn 
And the atmospheres of morn's high estate 
Shall thy spirit fill and her satiate. 

Oh ye sons of thought! Oh ye sons of thought! 

There are infinite worlds to be dreamed and brought. 

If thou wilt pause at the morning's portai 

Thou wilt see the dreams and the worlds immortal. 

WINTER. 

The father of the year has come 
Straight from the Arctic seas. 
The rivers, fields and streams are dumb, 

123 



And death is on the trees. 
December days and Christmas tide 

Now brings him to his throne. 
Behold him mounting in his pride 

Resistless and alone! 

Oh welcome, welcome, noble Sire! 

All welcome loud we sing! 
Thou wakest up our dying fire, 

Of life thou art the king. 
Thy presence is an atmosphere 

That soul doth vitalize; 
Our spirits keen to see and hear 

To greet thee doth arise. 

Though thou art old yet thou art young, 

Straight, true and bright and free, 
A giant mid our pigmy throng, 

A mighty spirit thee; 
An immortality of age 

And yet with age uncrowned, 
Youth, action, strength and kingly rage 

Within thy bosom bound. 

Thy countenance is like the face 

Of Iceland's ancient king, 
Strong, shaggy, great, a glowing grace, 

A living granite thing. 
Unwrinkled by a trace of fear; 

Unsigned by mortal hour; 
Like, like the ruler of a sphere 

With majesty and power. 

Bright icy crowns of rainbow gems 

Upon thy head doth glow, 
Far shaming jeweled diadems 

The sun struck icebergs show. 
A very mountain head of light 

Where frosty splendors dance! 
If standing in the sun a sight 

Forever on the glance. 

Thy lightning eyes of intense joy 

Shoot arrows swift and keen; 
All weakness piercing with destroy, 

They flash with happy sheen. 
Thy bosom like an engine pants, 

Thy breath is like the steam; 
With loud exhaust and measured chants 

Its clouds around thee stream. 



124 



Thy brow is like a marble white, 

A majesty at rest; 
A snowbank like a stream of light 

Sweeps ever down thy breast. 
Thy cheeks are of a crimson glow, 

A double rose of life. 
Oh what a rose upon the snows 

Of age and strength and strife! 

Thy snowy flowing locks of age 

Is harp for northern wind 
That coming oft with shaggy rage 

Doth toss them far behind; 
And as they round thy shoulders flow 

A music is unbound 
That only polar winds can blow 

And polar souls can sound. 

Thy swift lips of lurid blue 

The midnight moon has known, 
A storm of frozen pointed dew 

Thy hurling hands have thrown. 
Thy breast so like a rampart wall 

Guards thy immortal heart, 
Thy belt did from Orion fall 

To gird thee as thou art. 

Thy strong right arm could bear the sword 

As bright and keen and swift 
As free men ever have adored 

Or heroes old did lift. 
Whoever claspeth hands with thee 

Thrills, thrills into the heart 
Electric lightnings, passions free 

Doth through and through him dart. 

Thy sandles cold of keenest frost, 

With glist'ning edge and tips, 
White frozen kisses them embossed 

From Arctic ocean's lips. 
Thy feet like sharpened hammer blows 

Fall on the icy glass, 
Or muffled in the fluffy snows 

One scarce can hear them pass. 

Thy silver robe of royal state 

Was woven out of light. 
The web when made with thee to mate 

Was shot with sunbeams bright. 
When spread on thee in morning time, 

125 



Oh what a glorious sight! 
Thou art a high defender prime 
Of kingdoms rich and white. 

An icicle thy scepter is 

From cave of stalactites, 
Where prism waters trickle clear 

Down from the northern lights. 
Long, straight and strong and crystal pure, 

Topped with the polar star 
Swift lightnings from thy hold secure 

Fling challenges afar. 

The chariot thou dost use in war 

Was carved from iceberg blue, 
Has dreadful scythes of keenest frore 

And wheels of sparkling view. 
Night storms are black and blinded steeds, 

Wild, plunging, fierce and white, 
All raging on with lightning speeds, 

Earth trembles with affright. 

Sometimes thou ridest on the blast 

That circles from the pole, 
Cyclonic, howling, black and vast. 

Resistless in its roll. 
The blizzard is an instant death; 

All powers that rule the light 
In fearful thunder moanings saith: 

" 'Tis Winter in his might!" 

And sometimes thou dost ride the wind 

As glorious as a dream 
For thou art then the hero-kind 

That rarely on us gleam; 
For thou art then great nature's king 

And then we joyful scan 
A noble soul that up doth bring 

The greater man in man. 

Oh Winter live! Forever live! 

Come with the circles round! 
Out of all strife we cry for life 

And life in thee is found. 
Oh Winter live! Forever live! 

Forever crown the year! 
Thou gavest, givest and shall give 

Strength, health and boundless cheer. 

126 



A BOY'S RIDE. 

I've just had a wonderful horseman's ride; 

When I was away from town 
I behond a steed that was all untried 

And wished I could bring him down. 
'Twas a massive steed of a noble breed; 

He was nature's ancient pride 
And was shining bright with the passions white 

That life to his frame supplied. 

This earthquake horse had a nature of fire 

And breath like a furnace flame, 
And many a flash like the lightning's ire 

From his eyes and nostrils came. 
I could see life's tide and the passioned pride 

Swift leaping through the veins. 
Oft he neighed and sniffed and his head did lift 

'Gainst man and his guiding reins. 

This spirit of earth no mortal could dare 

Or dream that the deed could be, 
To mount on his back and a bridle snare 

On the passions like the sea. 
Since wish and desire and the deed are one 

In poets and men like me 
I leaped on his back and the dream was done, 

To bridle the strong and free. 

When he was aware how he shook and gnashed 

With many a mighty jolt! 
While through and around was flashed and flashed 

His electrical lightning bolt. 
How he plunged and kicked! How he roared and 

And rubbed his sides on the rocks! reared! 

He was wet with foam or was lather smeared 

And white with his glowing shocks. 

But old wisdom then did my place maintain 

And held me there on his back. 
The immortal here must the beast domain, 

The guide of his blinded track. 
'Twas a struggle vain for I firmer grew 

To his back with the mighty shocks; 
At last to the rein straight he onward flew 

As a storm when the cave unlocks. 

Full a score of miles down into the earth 
I plunged with a single leap, 

127 



Where neither the night nor the day has birth 

And all are forever asleep; 
Where the only lights were his flashing eyes, 

Were his nostril puffs of flame 
And the bickering sparks that did instant rise 

When his feet to the granite came. 

Through the solid walls of earth's prison keep 

I passed as the spirits do; 
And some glimpses caught of the treasures deep 

That poets and science view. 
There copper and silver and golden vein, 

Here jewels did round me blaze 
But the mighty life in the breast and brain 

Scorned all with a passing gaze. 

Through the mammoth caves and the cloven gorge 

Of sunless rivers and lakes, 
Through the under space by the mighty forge 

Where the earth her back-bone makes, 
Both around and down the volcano throat, 

Through the lava and flame and fire, 
Down, down to the deep and the gulfs so steep 

I drove to my steed's inspire. 

'Neath the cities vast where a million men 

Grew pale at the rumbling sound, 
Where the golden spire and the chimney fen 

As their hearts fell to the ground; 
Under the forests and rivers and lakes 

That were danced beneath my shocks, 
Through the under-world as the mountain shakes 

I rode on the fiery rocks. 

Down the mountain range like a phantom strange, 

Like a man and horse of fire, 
By the zigzag course as the peaks might change 

I sped to my heart's desire. 
As his mighty feet on the summits bound, 

What a mass of rock would break! 
And the hollow gorge with a thunder sound 

And with echoes long did wake. 

Through the purple deep of the ocean blue 

I rode but the light beguiles; 
Just where I arose for a moment's view 

Is one of a thousand isles. 
I plunged sheer down to the plumbless deep, 

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Down, down with a fierce desire. 
Can the ocean drench? Can her waters quench? 
I shot like a soul of fire. 

Whenever I rode from land to land, 

All creatures stood aghast; 
The earth would be rocked and the waves upstand 

Where my horse with violence passed. 
The powers of peace that inhabit the earth 

Would asudden fly before 
And the legion storms then awoke to birth 

And behind me madly tore. 

With the lightning steeds of the morning hours 

For empire I laid a race; 
I gave them a course through the azure bowers 

But mine through the earth would pace. 
Straight over the deserts and boundless plain 

I drove like a crazy witch, 
But the wage I won; the dirt from my train 

Was path for a river's ditch. 

The equator line was my chosen course, 

So a dozen times around 
I drove with no end but the mighty force 

I felt within me bound. 
Just a moment gone as I passed this place, 

I heard your familiar sound; 
So I threw the reigns on his dying pace 

And sprang to my native ground. 



OH GOLDEN SUN! 

Oh golden sun! Oh bright celestial sphere! 
Oh kingless king of heaven's wide expanse! 
Oh most divine of all that doth appear 
Within the range of earth's impassioned glance! 
No noonday dream, no vision-splendored trance 
Of morn, no flaming images of bright 
Creation's prime, nor golden forms that dance 
Upon the far off, high millenial height 
Eclipse thy glory. As thou dost advance 
On the beholding world thy glorious sight 
Her being more than fills with infinite delight. 

Thou art a boundless, boundless mass of fire — 
A furnace than our boldest dreams immense, 
And never measured in the white desire 

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Of instant fierceness — an incandescence 
Right down to the infinite heart intense 
And out unto the elemental gas 

That flames in mighty storms. The world's first essence 
From some sustaining radium heart doth pass 
With energy omnipotent through the dense, 
Intensest elements, and makes thy mass 
Like burnished, burnished seas of molten glowing glass. 

Thy being and thy nature are divine. 
Thy lightnings and thy high sublimities 
Around thy presence forever brightly shine 
As makes thee like a soul of magnanimities. 
Thy beauties, glories and divinities 
Of majesty — thy magnificence, 
Effulgent purities and their affinities 
Of glorious brightness — thy pre-eminence 
That fills the azure consanguinities 
With more than spheral fulness — thy dominance 
And king victoriousness are splendors of transcendence. 

Oh the splendors, the splendors pure that crown 
The unattainable, unvanquished thrones 
Of heav'n with glory surpassing the renown 
Of mighty stars and palpitating zones 
Of flaming breasted night! The universe loans 
Itself as a mere background of darkness 
From which thou bursteth and all creation owns 
Thee Lord, for the lightning splendors that dress 
Thy living soul each globe with joy entones, 
And their own souls with higher life possess 
While basking in the splendors no dreamers' dreams express. 

Oh the splendors, the splendors rich that radiate 
The golden floods into the boundless sphere 
With generosities that satiate 
The darkened, the empty and the hungry mere, 
So measureless, so vast, unknown and near! 
The mighty voids in which the worlds are mersed 
Are by thy presence disendowered of fear 
And through its length and breadth has burst 
The splendors, the splendors that career 
Forever on, and thus the voids so cursed 
Are peopled by thy births and by thy presence nursed. 

Oh the splendors, the splendors thou dost fling 
Upon the broad monarchal brows of day 
As on the head of some archangel king 
Descended now in heaven's best array! 
These splendors and their infinite display 

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Aij traveling down the march of space and time 
Now fill and flood that long enchanting way 
With images of most immortal prime. 
The splendors that no space or time can stay 
Nor night eclipse nor retain all heav'n's clime 
Are pouring floods and floods sublime and more sublime. 

Thou motherest this palpitating earth 
And bore her long beneath thy passioned heart. 
Thy elements, youth, hope and strength and mirth, 
And all thy life to her thou didst impart. 
When that omnipotential hour did start 
The mingled song of her own separate race 
Thy motherhood both then and since did dart 
Thy lightning smile on her reflecting face. 
Thou gavest her two mighty wings to chart 
A shining orbit through the voids of space 
And on she ever flies on her elliptic race. 

Across the bridgeless, hollow, hungry void 
Thou nursest her. Thy kisses of delight 
And their communications hast enjoyed 
Her spirit and the flesh that doth bedight. 
Thy maternal divinations doth sight 
Her in the void and uncontainable endower 
Doth replenish her impoverished might 
Against the gulf that instant would devour. 
Perennial streams embosomed golden bright 
Before all heaven flow to her hour by hour 
And on the empty waste sustain her failing power. 

What time she turns out of thy saving sight 
Oh what eclipse of youth and joy and hope! 
Oh what a swift paralysis doth smite 
The crimson life in that warm envelope! 
A blind and staggering world-soul doth grope 
Amid a wide chaotic desolation 
Or lieth senseless 'neath the darkened cope 
Of angry heaven. This fond and fair creation 
To which thy bosomed fulness did unope 
Lies thwart the night in naked mutilation 
And all her mighty births are loud in lamentation. 

What time she turns out of thy saving sight 
Black howling storms burst on the palsied earth. 
Out of the killing, frosty, raven night 
The brood of death come with chaotic dearth 
And blast tne globe from center to its girth. 
Across this breast, warm as a summer bride's, 
Great tempests rave in wild blaspheming mirth 

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That blasts all love and life. Dread winter rides 
Around the globe and tramples every birth 
And hope in whom thy spirit still abides 
And naked, hungry death a ruined earth bestrides. 

But Oh what times again to thee she turns. 
Her wood and stream and field and hill and ocean 
Is quickened from the heart that in thee burns 
As is a birth by motherhood's devotion! 
Thy golden smile is like a liquid lotion 
Bathing the limbs and breast and brow of earth, 
And vernal atmospheres are like a potion 
That vitalize her heart. Every nature birth 
Doth break its trance, awakes to rise and sing 
And looks to thee the giver of the mirth, 
Reviving all the world from her heart unto her girth. 

But Oh what time again to thee she turns 
Her inmost heart again with summer teems 
For that regenerating life that burns 
In thee flows in voluminous streams 
Until the earth is drunken with the dreams 
Of life and love! The emaciations 
Are glowing with the rich and fatty creams 
Thou feedest to her heart and creations 
Doth arise whose boundless life diviner seems 
Than earth herself dare claim. These palpitations 
Are straight from thine own heart and drunk with gratulations. 

Bpt Oh what time again to thee she turns 
The very world-soul rises with amaze 
The memories of her happy childhood burns 
And she is lost in that supernal blaze 
Of splendors pure that captivate her days. 
Her mountains, oceans, forest, plain and stream 
And every living beast upon their ways 
Worships the infinite celestial dream 
That round thy soul with lightning glory plays. 
Dream of all dreams, vision of visions supreme 
The world's diviner self within thy glories gleam! 

Thou art in all things beauty, soul and power 
For by thy presence plant and shrub and vine 
Bright blossom forth and royally endower 
The earth. Unto the birds thou dost resign 
Some portion of thy rainbow light and shine 
Some beauty into the lowest earthly beast. 
All things that are and that with passion pine, 
The worms and even unconscious things have leased 
To them some portion of thy glory. Thy divine 

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Communications forever rich increased 
Bid all arise to thee and front the dawning east. 

Boundless amplitudes of stretching prairie 
Rest under thee with infinite repose. 
Majestic forests upon their summits airy 
Grow gr^en and glad as light their life bestows. 
Ponderous sublime like mountains with snows 
On their eternal heads by thee are bright 
Beyond all dreams imagination knows. 
Out oh the sea! The sea divine to sight! 
The mirror that is polished as it flows; 
Dost thou not fill in depth and width and might 
With thine own golden soul and radiant streams of light! 

Out of that glorious, soundless, saving sea 
Thy noonday hand doth lift a sparkling bowl 
And scatt'rest it with blessing on the free 
And azure dome. Then instantly the whole 
Concave is flecked with living clouds that roll 
Their high fantastic course along the blue 
And vaulted arch of heaven. When now thy soul 
Of dazzling, blinding whiteness bursteth through 
The fragile veil, what rainbow beauties stroll 
Thy bright dominions and buildeth up anew 
A rich enchanted land as dreams desire to view! 

All that thou hast, Oh infinite desire! 
All that thou art, Oh infinite delight! 
Thy glowing, flowing, warming, forming fire 
Is given earth and thy very heart so bright 
Doth recreate her being with a white 
And glowing passion. Thy blessings penetrate 
Her spirit, circle like life her frame, bedight 
In royalist robes, inspire all passions great 
And crown, crown her with thy glorious light 
In heaven in most magnificent estate; 
What she can dare to dream thy gif tings more than mate. 

Thou dost out-dream the vital hopes that rise 
When she spring forth from slumb'ring with the dead 
And raptured looks upon the azure skies 
With better dreams than any dream that fled. 
Her green and vernal heart so passion fed 
With joys and hopes of life, her happy mirth, 
Songs of delight and promises that breed 
A summer tide on winter's blasted dearth — 
All her passions, joys and dreams but need 
One glorious morn to burst upon the earth 
To more than over-feed herself and every birth. 

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Oh the morn! The morning most divine! 
The bursting dawn! The fulness of delight! 
The storm-like flood effulgencies that shine 
Upon the dark and fear enphantomed night! 
Thou art the morn and thy creating might 
Renews the earth like visions of a dream 
Upon the heart of life's enraptured sight. 
Oh what a vital, golden, golden stream 
On mountain, plain and ocean doth alight 
With joys and hopes that with life over-teem 
With sweetest liquid life, with life of life supreme! 

Oh the morn, the morning most divine! 
The dawn of life, redemption, glory, power, 
Peace, praise and all for which the world doth pine! 
Earth's regeneration — recreating hour — 
Awaking — baptism — crowning and endower 
Of beatific blessedness! The morn thou art 
And the chambers of the east that doth embower 
Thy presence bright forever holds the heart 
Of the World Soul. The world's great natures tower 
In nobleness and yet they ever start 
With more augmented being when thou dost on them dart. 

What a more than infinite majesty 
Of splendor, magnificence and repose 
When thou upon thy noonday throne dost free 
The full resource that in thy bosom glows! 
The whole celestial sphere drinks in the flows 
Of glorious sheen as the wide creations 
Open their deeps to thy divine bestows. 
The glory of thy golden radiations, 
More pure and white than sifted mountain snows, 
Crowd the expense and crown the exaltations 
With infinite delight and nooday satiations. 

What spherical effulgencies of light 
When thou art throned upon the nooday hour! 
What millions of electric lightnings white 
Thy countenance doth ever shoot and shower! 
What omnipotential brightness of endower 
Dost thou unveil on the receptive earth, 
Passions, grandeur, sublimity and power 
Of purest light unto creations' girth! 
King of all worlds upon thy nooday tower, 
Supremest and most infinite in worth, 
Thy transcendental splendors blinds this immortal birth. 

Oh the splendors, the splendors that doth blaze 
Upon the new born infants of the earth 

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And burst upon its first, fresh opened gaze 
As it doth enter through the gates of birth! 
The splendors rich of hope and strength and mirth 
That first baptize and welcome to the light 
The inheritors of all existent worth 
Is ever throned upon the heightless height! 
Oh the splendors that no chaotic dearth 
Can blind or stay upon our opening sight 
But shinest clear and pure and girdest us with might! 

Oh the splendors, the splendors pure that crown 
Our younger prime and vital energize 
Our mortal strength against time's dark'ning frown 
And circumstance that oft upon us lies! 
Oh the splendors that inspire the eyes 
Of this intelligence when e'er it wakes 
To look upon the solemn breasted skies 
That feed the strength with which this being breaks! 
Oh the splendors that ever rich supplies 
The ideal and the energy that makes 
The future ever new, the past forever shakes! 

Oh the splendors, the splendors all divine, 
That feed the ripest visions of all time 
Though vast immortal passions reach and pine 
For those extremes unto this world of crime! 
Oh the splendors more glorious and sublime 
Then men see here, or those they dare to dream 
Within the dreams which thy celestial clime 
Builds up in them like empires most supreme! 
Oh the splendors that poets in their prime 
Forever shame and yet forever stream 
The crown and robe and heart into his every theme! 

Oh the splendors, the splendors ripe that blind 
The nurslings of this immortality 
And nurture up the mortal heart and mind 
Above the plane of nature's dead formality! 
Oh the splendors that fill the wide portality 
Of heaven and vastly more than beautify 
The solemn deeps which this finality 
Feels kindred most to that which cannot die! 
Oh the splendors that crown this reality 
Of infinite significance where we 
Are welcomed into life if we could only see! 

What an invitation to this blind earth 
Doth blaze out of the wide portality 
Of being to usher into virtuous birth 
This mortal and the hope of immortality? 

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Could the heav'n of heav'ns with its courtality 
Of infinite magnificence and station 
Invite more glad the family of finality? 
Man must be the heir of the creation, 
Son of eternities, reality 
For which thy white effulgent radiation 
Doth but exist to light his soul to exaltation. 

Thou revealest the nature vast of man; 
The attributes of his essential heart 
An kin to thine when the lightning scan 
Doth look on him and purge soul of the mart. 
How supreme, sublime and glorious is the chart 
Engraved upon this immortality? 
Could the energies that upward in us start, 
Conscious of this infinite finality, 
Find any image but thy powers that dart 
And light him to an ideality 
Of being? Could the nature of this reality 

So vast, could this inextinguishable hope, 
Could this ambition and climbing domination, 
Could this moral sense sublime as is the cope 
Above us and the dreams that there we station, 
Could this ideal that crowns the wide creation 
And that invites the searching lightnings white 
Find any sign or symboling manifestation 
But thy great soul of majesty and might? 
Could the crowded and golden congregation 
Of his flaming mind, could his passions white 
Of infinite like sweep of length and breadth and height, 

Could the godlike action of his creating will, 
Full clad in deeds archangels match or pale, 
Could earth and all environment outfill 
His bright ideal, Oh Soul! would he not sail 
Among the stars and all creation hail 
The glorious dream as all now haileth thee? 
Tear off, tear off the blind and selfish veil! 
Burn into him his own reality! 
Bring up the soul thai being's height can scale! 
Magnificent with thy courtality 
Forever robe him bright in conscious immortality! 

Oh golden sun! Oh bright celestial sphere! 
Oh kingless king of heav'ns' wide expanse! 
Oh most divine of all that doth appear, 
Within the range of earth's impassioned glance! 
No noonday dreams, no vision-splendored trance 
Of morn, no flaming images of bright 

cation's prime, nor golden forms that dance 

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Upon the far off, high millennial height 
Eclipse thy glory. As thou dost advance 
Upon the worlds and man thy glorious sight 
Their beings more than fill with infinite delight. 



TO MY NATURE SONGS. 

Go, my Nature Songs, to the world's dark frown, 
To the wealth and power that so oft turned down, 
To neglect and scorn, to the strife and greed 
That the World and Life to each other feed! 

Not a friend have ye in the wide wide world; 

Can ye stem the floods where the gods are hurled? 

If from nature born she will not disown 

Though the rending globes are against ye thrown. 

In some seven years ye have not found one; 
In some seven more there may still be none; 
But there's something leaps from my heart to ye 
And a something forth from your hearts to me. 

Perhaps it is only the father's pride; 
Perhaps it is nature that both doth ride; 
The great psychic soul of the universe 
That sings to the all as sue all doth nurse. 

Now to Nature stern that doth know no self, 
Who is neither for nor against our pelf 
But eternal change and forever flow 
Of a boundless life in intensest glow, 

Ye are now cast forth to the flood of life, 
To remorseless fate and destroying strife 
And thy parent reads on the earth and sky: 
"From themselves alone all must live or die." 




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